Palimpsest
by Aquiver
Summary: Fem!Harry/SS. An AU rendition of the seven school years. Harry was born Harriet, and it will change the course of the wizarding world forever. M for Mature themes. The absolute 'slowest burn' romance, but hopefully worth the wait.
1. A Prince for Harriet

**NEW AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 **Greetings. I'm sorry for the woeful lack of updates, but that doesn't mean I haven't been writing for you.**

 **As it was, I was rather unsatisfied with the version of this story I had started. I began writing it on a whim and didn't even fathom how large it would be. I'm now planning to give it greater dedication, but that meant starting over and paying closer attention to detail and really playing around with the world JK created.**

 **There are some outstanding differences: new characters, entirely new scenes, and perhaps the strangest change I have made—Harriet is a redhead like her mother. I didn't make such a change lightly, but I do believe that it will come to give additional purpose to the story that couldn't have been given to it any other way.**

 **Some of these scenes will be familiar, but absolutely no chapter is a replica of what it was before. I thought of signifying new material in some way such as italics or bolding, but it was too intrusive to the reading. Skip any scene that you _think_ you know at your own discretion.**

 **Please, settle in and be open to some changes in the world that I hope will make this palimpsest more enjoyable.**

ORIGINAL AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Fem!Harry/SS is the ultimate pairing, though there will be no funny business until far down the road. Warnings include all the usual, terrible things that could and will go wrong (or right, if you catch my smutty drift). This story very well could end up being quite massive, considering it follows a seven book series. That does not mean that this will be a rehashing of the books with a female main character. As a matter of fact, this could end up seriously, seriously AU. Consider yourselves warned. While I will try to keep people in character, do consider that I am forcing them to do things that they have never had to do in canon and that I am not (and never will be) JK. They are only as in-character as I can make them.

I'm unbetad and unBritish. See you at the end.

Palimpsest: a page of a manuscript which has been cleared so that it may be reused and rewritten.

* * *

Harriet Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

A Prince for Harriet

Harriet Potter, the solitary female child at 4 Privet Drive, considered herself to be the home's best kept secret. A plain and inconspicuous nature had been cultivated in her much in the same way others tended gardens in their backyard, and the comfort of her childhood had been sacrificed for the sake of secrecy.

On the mantelpiece in the home's sitting room rested framed photographs of the most average family one could ever have the misfortune (or, as her aunt and uncle might think, the _good_ fortune) to meet: Aunt Petunia, slight and tall, with fair hair and far more neck than what was physically necessary nor aesthetically pleasing; Uncle Vernon, as short and wide as his wife was tall and slim with almost no neck and a penchant for displaying his emotions by the changing colors of his face; and Dudley, Harriet's cousin, who was quadruple her size and often resembled some sort of large, cruel beach ball.

Nowhere to be found was a single picture of the home's final and youngest occupant. Harriet was very short and thin for her age. She didn't eat much, but this was more due to her aunt and uncle rationing her food than any lack of appetite on Harriet's end. Vernon and Petunia seemed to see a great many bad qualities in Harriet that needed stamping out; for instance, when Dudley ate his weight in bacon, he was considered a growing boy, but if she asked for a second sandwich she was 'being wasteful and greedy.' Almost opposite to the Dursleys, Harriet had hair and eyes that were not at all plain: her hair was a vivid red and her eyes a gemlike green, the latter marred by the thick glasses that she needed to see only anything and everything.

Harriet's most distinct feature was the easiest to hide: beneath the wild fringe of her bangs rested a thin, lightning bolt shaped scar. She had obtained it in the car crash that killed both of her parents and which had forced her to live with the Dursleys in the first place. While it was her most notable characteristic, it was also her least favorite; around the time of her monthly haircut, Harriet always reminded Aunt Petunia of just how _noticeable_ the scar was—it was the only sure way to maintain bangs in a home where she did not get to choose anything else about her appearance.

On a street like Privet Drive, one could not afford to be different. Each house seemed to be a replica of the next with tall fences that were mostly there for show since everyone was always craning their neck so as to have a better look into their neighbor's yard and business. Harriet made her aunt and uncle nervous. Orphans were not ordinary. Even more unordinary in this instance were the orphan's parents, James and Lily Potter, who had not been spoken of on Privet Drive for almost a decade and who wouldn't be spoken of at all if the Dursleys could help it.

Petunia and Vernon took a hands on approach in teaching Harriet to become invisible, and that was by treating her as such. When they were not ignoring her, they were making her wish they _had_ ignored her; in that way, they were very effective teachers and won all around. Often in the evenings when she was locked into her bedroom (which could hardly be called a bedroom as it was a cupboard under the stairs), her stomach rumbling with hunger and body aching with pains from the chores her aunt demanded of her during the day, Harriet wondered how any one person could be as miserable and lonely as she was. She often fell asleep with tears on her lashes, her hand over her mouth so no cries could wake the house's other occupants, wishing she had never been born or something similar.

That morning seemed not much different, though that is precisely the issue with extraordinary days: one often doesn't _know_ that a day will be extraordinary until it is far too late.

Harriet woke before anyone else in the house. She had been dreaming—for once, a pleasant one filled with warm scents, the glow of candles, and the bubbling sound of liquids, as if she had been standing in front of a very busy stove. When her eyes finally opened to the darkness of her cupboard, she squeezed them shut for a few moments longer hoping that maybe she could slip back into the dream.

When this was futile, she crept to the cupboard door to try the handle—and it was unlocked. The hinges creaked terribly as she pushed the tiny door open, the noise causing her to wince and to stop the motion several times, holding her breath to listen for any further sounds in the house. At one point she thought she heard a quiet stirring, but after long moments of silence she continued her creeping.

In the kitchen, she stood on her tiptoe to pull a loaf of bread down from the cupboard. She stuffed one piece into her mouth and tucked a second slice aside for later. Getting down a cup to sneak some water from the tap was a more difficult task, as the cups were kept up quite high and Harriet was quite short. Using her skinny arms to pull herself up onto the counter, she was just reaching for the cup (chewing on a mouthful of dry bread) when she heard the sound from behind her.

It was Aunt Petunia, standing in the kitchen doorway with her eyes wide as if she had caught a burglar in her kitchen as opposed to her niece. Harriet froze, cup in hand. For a long moment the two of them just stared at each other. Then her aunt was in action, springing across the kitchen and grabbing handfuls of red hair to haul Harriet down from her perch on the counter. The plastic cup clattered to the floor.

"You _demon_!" Aunt Petunia shrieked. "Stealing from our food—climbing on my counters—your filthy, _filthy_ feet—!"

"I was hungry!" Harriet stated uselessly around a mouthful of bread.

" _Out_!" Hauling Harriet to the backdoor, Aunt Petunia wrenched it open and pushed the girl out with such force than she landed on her hands and knees on the back porch narrowly avoiding a striped lawn chair. "Get out and _stay out_!"

The door slammed shut behind her.

The girl rested there panting with adrenalin, trying very hard not to cry and failing entirely. Her palms and knees were scratched and stinging, but she couldn't see them for long before tears obscured her vision. To make matter worse—both pieces of bread had been lost in the struggle. Her mission had been for naught.

" _I hate her_ ," Harriet said into her palms. She struggled to find a name terrible enough for her aunt. "She's—she's—"

"A bitch?" A voice drawled.

Harriet's head flew up, blinking away her tears. Slowly an image formed: a man was standing inside Aunt Petunia's privacy fence. Man might have been a stretch—he looked like one of the young adults (perhaps twice her age at most) that Uncle Vernon liked to give nasty looks to in public for their funny clothes and mannerisms. The man was dressed in all black with hair long and blond that touched his shoulders. Despite the warm weather, he was wearing a long-sleeved, fitted jacket. Through one of his ears was a piece of metal and clutched in between his first two fingers was a smoldering cigarette that he sucked on for a long moment. Harriet gaped.

"W-what?"

"She's bitch. A foul useless _cunt_." He took another drag, cheeks hollowing.

"I'm sorry," Harriet said, pushing herself to her feet. She gave a glance over her shoulder to see if Aunt Petunia was watching through the glass window on the door, but the curtain had been drawn. "Do I know you?"

"No," he said. He flicked some ash on Aunt Petunia's hedge.

"I don't mean to be rude, but what are you doing here?"

"I _was_ smoking. Let me see your palms."

"Why?"

"You're bleeding—I can see so from here."

Sheepishly, she held them out. "It's not that bad really—Dudley hit me in the nose with a football once and there was loads more blood then."

The man left his cigarette to rest in the corner of his mouth while he searched through his jacket, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like 'push the whole bloody lot of them down the stairs.' From nowhere he seemed to produce a long piece of dark, polished wood. He gestured her closer with an impatient hand, scowling.

"Get over here, girl."

She hesitated for a long moment, looking back and forth between the man and the Dursley house. Children weren't supposed to talk to strangers, especially not strangers who looked strange _and_ acted strange, appearing in one's backyard and such. But she was always better at obeying orders than questioning them, and sometimes she thought that if someone snatched her up and ran away with her, then she might be lucky. She ambled closer and presented her hands.

He pressed the tip of the stick to the center of her palm, murmuring a word under his breath. To Harriet's amazement, the scratches and scrapes closed themselves up and then disappeared completely. She gaped up at the stranger who was tucking away the stick back inside his jacket.

"How?" She asked, mouth open wide.

"Magic," the man smirked.

"There's no such thing as magic."

He snorted. "Shows what _you_ know."

#

That was the first time she met Mr. Prince—that's what he introduced himself as, at least. Harriet wasn't sure if that was _really_ his name though, as he seemed to do an awful lot of smirking whenever she said it. He was standing in the same spot the next day, and the day after that. Even on the days he did not appear, Harriet couldn't help but feel like maybe he was there watching her and just didn't want to reveal himself. Sometimes she caught the scent of cigarette smoke on the breeze and twisted her head every which way to try to see if she could spot him, but she soon gave up on such a game. When Mr. Prince did not wish to be seen, he _was not seen_.

He was magical, see.

On days when Aunt Petunia wrote Harriet a long list of chores, he would often take the slip of paper from her and read it over, scowling and mumbling foul curses under his breath. Then, he would wave his wand—that's what he called it, a _wand_ —and the chores would begin to do themselves: hedge clippers came to life as if invisible people were holding them, flowerbeds removed their weeds on their own, and water could shoot from the end of his wand in a stream he directed all over the lawn to water it.

If Aunt Petunia noticed that Harriet suddenly became an expert at completing her chores before the end of the day, she never said anything. Harriet thought that this was because Aunt Petunia tried not to notice her much at all, which was alright by her.

June passed with all the alacrity of a slug. Now that there was more to her days than never-ending chores and meals she'd never eat, time seemed to pass more slowly instead of blending together blindly. For once in her life, she couldn't complain.

On days when Mr. Prince helped her to complete her chores ahead of schedule, the two of them often sat on the lawn chairs that rested on the back porch and talked. He asked her questions about life with the Dursleys. She once tried to lie—just a bit really, because admitting how dreary her days were seemed much more shameful than lying—but Mr. Prince seemed to know when she was telling the truth and when she wasn't. More than once, Harriet had the distinct feeling that he could even read minds, especially since he was so adept at knowing where Harriet's family was and whether any of them were glancing out the windows.

When she admitted that she wasn't often fed by her aunt and uncle (at least, not as often as _she_ would have liked), he began to bring food for her: sandwiches with thick, brown bread stuffed with meats and vegetables and mayo and mustards. She tried to eat as gracefully as she could, though she was often hungry enough that manners took backseat to her appetite.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," he would snap, handing her a flask warmed from his pocket and touch. As soon as it touched her lips though, she could tell that the insides were quite chilled. He produced his own flask that he sipped from periodically, though judging by all of his wincing, he didn't much care for its contents.

Making sure she had swallowed the last bite of her sandwich, Harriet repeated her question.

"Will you tell me more about Hogwarts today?"

Mr. Prince had the most fantastic stories about magical schools filled with students who learned magic the way she learned maths and reading. He talked about another world existing alongside the one she knew, where pointed hats were all the rage and people could use their wands to accomplish nearly any task. Best of all—he said his stories were _real_.

"Do you remember the four houses?" He asked, voice becoming serious and methodical. Harriet thought that he would make a marvelous teacher—perhaps he _was_ a teacher, but he didn't like to tell her many things about himself and downright refused a majority of the time.

"Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, and Hufflelump."

He snorted. "Quite right. Each of the houses were created by and named after the four founders of Hogwarts. Each had different qualities they valued and looked for in their pupils. Students are sorted into their respective houses based on those qualities."

"Did you attend Hogwarts?" Harriet asked. He frowned, searching his jacket for his cigarette case.

"Yes," he said at last.

"What house were you in?"

"That's none of your business," he snapped, lighting his cigarette with the end of his wand and sucking until the flame caught. Suddenly, he tucked his wand away, stood, and took long steps towards the hedge. He twirled his wand around himself and disappeared. She could still feel his eyes on her.

The back door opened and it was Dudley who stepped out into the yard. Dudley had just been accepted into Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings. He was dressed in an outfit even fouler than usual: a maroon tailcoat, orange knickerbockers, and a flat straw hat called a boater. Boys at Smeltings also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. Dudley took every opportunity to practice this skill on Harriet.

"Where were you?" Dudley asked.

"Where else but here?" Harriet asked. "I just finished trimming the hedges."

Dudley smiled nastily. He strutted to the hedges in question which were shaped perfectly thanks to Mr. Prince's magic. Unknowingly, Dudley was a few feet from where the older man must have been standing, invisible. Harriet thought she could see a slight shimmer towards his right—was that just her imagination? Raising his stick, Dudley beat at one of the hedges until he had made a sizeable dent in its branches.

"Looks like you still have work to do," he said when he was done, wiping away sweat from his brow. Dudley had a penchant for sweating at the mere thought of physical exertion. His cruel grin widened.

"Looks fine to me."

He turned to see the hedge in pristine condition. His mouth gaped.

"How'd you do that?" He said, eyeing her like he was thinking of beating _her_ with his Smelting stick now, but perhaps that was just his face.

"Magic," Harriet said smiling.

He swung the stick at her, though she ducked in time to feel it rustle the air just above her head. Furious, Dudley smacked at her knee making her wince.

"Stop it," Harriet said through her teeth. Dudley barely seemed to hear her, giving her another sharp smack with the stick. The noise it made against her hipbone was impressive even if it was dulled by the thick, murky air. "I mean it Dudley—knock it off."

"Or what?" He taunted, hitting her about the head with it so that she saw stars. Her face felt red like the sun had baked it, and she imagined the look on Mr. Prince's face as he stood there watching.

The next time the stick swung at her, Harriet tried to catch it, stinging her knuckles on it hard enough that she cried out, shaking her hand as if to chase away the pain. Seeing red, she reached out for it again and this time caught it. Surprised as he was, Dudley let it slip through his fat fingers and then stared at her, face paling.

"Give me that back—I'm going to tell mum—"

"Tell your stupid mum," Harriet hissed, holding the stick with both hands like a bat. She aimed it at Dudley's belly (admittedly the biggest target) but wasn't pleased with the dull thwack it made against his fat. He turned to run away from her, tripped over his own feet and ended up sprawled in the grass. Harriet brought the stick down on his back, his arms, his legs, avoiding his head because getting hit in the head with a knobbly old stick really _hurt_.

Suddenly, the stick disappeared from her hands. It floated next to her for a moment before throwing itself across the yard to lay uselessly by the door. The air next to her briefly shimmered.

"That's enough," a voice whispered in her ear though she could barely hear it over the sound of Dudley's wailing.

Face burning with shame, Harriet nodded. As soon as the rain of blows stopped, Dudley scrambled to his feet. His uniform was damp and smeared with grass stains. Still wailing, he made a run for the door, stooping to pick up his Smelting stick.

She felt the smooth tip of Mr. Prince's wand touch a particularly tender spot on her scalp, hearing his mumbled words. The pain disappeared. Another moment later and he had appeared from thin air, smirking widely.

"Your aunt won't be pleased," he said.

Harriet smiled. "It was worth it."

Though he said nothing, his dark eyes glittered as if he quite agreed with her.

To say that Aunt Petunia _wasn't pleased_ was an understatement. More accurately, she was livid. Her face twisted with fury, she grabbed Harriet by a fistful of red hair and pushed her into her cupboard under the stairs swearing that they wouldn't be letting her out again anytime soon. It was not the first time they had made such a threat to her, but it was the first time she had lamented it so greatly. Would Mr. Prince stand outside and wait, only for her to never arrive? The idea made something in her chest hurt, and she pressed her palm against it as if to sooth the ache.

She closed her eyes against the tears that threatened to come and tried to sleep. In her cupboard, sleep made time move. Perhaps she could sleep right up until the day that the Dursleys weren't angry at her anymore. If such a day ever came.

Two days passed, and Harriet mourned Mr. Prince more than ever. She often laid on her mattress and tried to imagine what sort of magic he might have been showing her if she'd been allowed out of her cupboard. Were there spells that could make someone's facial hair grow very quickly? What about a spell that could transfigure her into a lobster? Not that she wanted to end up on anyone's dinner plate, but the idea of being something that she wasn't sounded very appealing.

Once she was thinking of the same sort of spells over and over again, Harriet thought to turn the light on and try to read one of the old, musty story books in the corner of her cupboard. Aunt Petunia had purchased them at discount for Dudley, but he had never wanted to read them. She pulled the string to turn on the light and went through the books. Some of them were for adults, with small print that she had to squint to see and words she could barely pronounce. Others were the ones that had been for Dudley—fairy tales and picture books. Harriet read those with interest.

She couldn't tell when it was time to sleep properly, as there were no windows in her cupboard and it often seemed like time ceased to exist when she was locked away there. Soon sounds began to come from the upstairs bedroom as Uncle Vernon—or was it Aunt Petunia?—woke and went about their day. Footsteps down the stairs and then past her cupboard door, but no one let her out. Judging by the quiet clinking of pans on the stove, it was Aunt Petunia starting breakfast.

Harriet dozed in and out of sleep with nothing else to do, hearing the rumbling voices of the Dursleys having breakfast. The smell of bacon made her stomach gurgle angrily and reminded her of Mr. Prince's sandwiches. She pressed her fist against it. Silly thing.

It wasn't long until Harriet realized just what day it was, and then she could scarcely believe her fortune: it was Dudley's birthday. Dudley's birthdays were the most miserable affairs for Harriet—she was forced to witness his parents' love for him manifested in the form of dozens of gifts that she could only dream of receiving and that he barely seemed to care for. More often than not, Dudley spent the day with his closest friend Piers and they got to do all sorts of fun things: amusement parks, the theater, birthday parties at the park. Harriet usually spent the day with Miss Figg, a kind, older woman who smelled of bath salts and owned far too many cats that she seemed to love with eagerness.

Perhaps this year, since the Dursleys were still ignoring her, Harriet would be allowed to spend the day in her cupboard—or, though she knew almost certainly that such a thing would be too good to be true, allowed to lounge around the house and watch television and do as she pleased.

It wasn't until she heard Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon arguing outside her cupboard that she suspected the day might go any differently. Dudley's plaintiff cries in the distance sounded like music to her ears when she was not required to look at his twisted, bloated face as he lied to get his way. Not to mention she wasn't in danger of being pelted by his Smelting stick…Harriet crept to the door to press her against it and hear better.

"—can't bloody well leave her here. She could blow up the house—"

"Dudley doesn't want her there—"

"We've no choice, Petunia, the girl has to come along—"

Suddenly the door of her cupboard was ripped open, sunlight streaming in and making her shriek with pain. Both hands over her eyes to try to stem the flow of tears, she barely heard Uncle Vernon tell her to get herself dressed and looking presentable (though all of her clothes were either much too large as they were Dudley's or much too small as they were old).

Tugging on a pair of pants short enough to show her ankles, she pulled her fingers through her long hair to try to comb out the tangles.

She could not help but feel like a trip to the zoo with Dudley and Piers Polkiss was a disaster waiting to happen.

#

But she was wrong—the day wasn't a disaster. It was _a catastrophe_. Things had gone beautifully at first even if she was saddled into the backseat of the car with Piers and Dudley on either side of her, pinching her arms until she was covered in tiny bruises; however, it had all gone to hell in the reptile house at the zoo, Harriet was almost positive that she had accidentally vanished the glass on the tank of a large Brazilian boa constrictor, and that was _after_ she had a full conversation with it. Unfortunately, Uncle Vernon was just as positive if not more so that she had done this—and he spent the entire ride home in the car on the verge of apoplectic rage.

Harriet cleared her schedule, because she was positive that she would be stuck inside her cupboard for the rest of her life.

"I didn't do it on purpose!" She shouted every time someone walked by the stairs. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon ignored her, but Dudley liked to laugh and bang on her door as he passed, rattling it with his Smelting stick.

At last, she had given up. Her aunt and uncle were capable of holding grudges and remembering misdemeanors for months— _years_. She might be let out once school started, and they most certainly had to let her out once in a while so that she could use the restroom (she couldn't hold it forever), but she had no doubt that between now and then, her every waking moment would be spiders and darkness and her cupboard. Harriet stared up into the fathomless ceiling, tearless with resignation, hoping that she might fall asleep the way the rest of the house had.

Until she heard the noise: the quietest creaking of a footstep in the kitchen. She held her breath to listen, unsure whether or not she was dreaming or hallucinating. Harriet slipped off of her mattress and snuck to her cupboard door to press her ear against it and listen. There it was again: another footstep.

"Please, Aunt Petunia," Harriet said to the door, her voice cracking. "I didn't mean to make the glass disappear. _Please_ let me out."

And from outside her cupboard, someone unlocked the door.

* * *

 **You will notice that the other chapters that were previously up have been removed. Never fear: I've already finished the new chapters 1 through 4 (which is what was previously posted). Instead of replacing them all in one fell swoop, I'm going to give this chapter a few hours to be read and then post chapter 2 and so on and so forth.**

 **Check back in two or three hours, there'll be something new for you.**


	2. The Unspecified Prophecy

**NEW AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 **Greetings. I'm sorry for the woeful lack of updates, but that doesn't mean I haven't been writing for you.**

 **As it was, I was rather unsatisfied with the version of this story I had started. I began writing it on a whim and didn't even fathom how large it would be. I'm now planning to give it greater dedication, but that meant starting over and paying closer attention to detail and really playing around with the world JK created.**

 **There are some outstanding differences: new characters, entirely new scenes, and perhaps the strangest change I have made—Harriet is a redhead like her mother. I didn't make such a change lightly, but I do believe that it will come to give additional purpose to the story that couldn't have been given to it any other way.**

 **Some of these scenes will be familiar, but absolutely no chapter is a replica of what it was before. I thought of signifying new material in some way such as italics or bolding, but it was too intrusive to the reading. Skip any scene that you think you know at your own discretion.**

 **Please, settle in and be open to some changes in the world that I hope will make this palimpsest more enjoyable.**

 ***If you have not read the new chapter one (updated to be as such on August 12, 2015), please go and do so now before continuing to this chapter. You will be quite confused.***

Chapter Two: The Unspecified Prophecy

Severus Snape had impressive, fathomless abilities to hate. They had been honed through years of practice, but sometimes he surprised even himself with his endless capacity for detestation. Petunia tested his skills when he was a child by being an all-around bitter, hypocritical bitch—calling Lily foul names and threatening her, inexcusable childhood transgressions. Now, after more than twenty years, she was pressing his buttons again, only he was capable of far worse things than glares and mean names.

He was contemplating which Unforgivable Curse he was willing to go to Azkaban for as he broke into the Dursley's back door. Severus (Polyjuiced as the young stock boy who worked at the grocers in Cokeworth) hadn't caught a single glimpse of the girl for nearly two days when she finally appeared, ushered by that fat dolt of an uncle into the family station wagon. He watched with narrow eyes, dropping his cigarette and crushing it into the gravel with his boot. For a moment, he toyed with the idea of following them. Instead, he pulled a book from his bag, sat down Disillusioned on the bench across the street, and waited for them to return. The sun was nearly setting when he heard the rumbling of the car coming up the drive. He watched as Vernon dragged the girl from the car by the back of her massive shirt, casting furtive glances left and right to make sure no one was looking.

But Severus was looking. Drawing his wand from inside his jacket, he left his bag on the bench and began to cross the street. He'd been wondering if the time would come when he would be justified in cursing the Dursleys into oblivion, and it seemed as if his time had come at last.

The girl's face was tear strained, long red hair tangled. Up and down her arms were tiny, shadowy marks—were those _bruises_? A cold fury swept over him. On his wand, his knuckles turned white with rage. The oafish beast of a cousin Harriet stood a chance against, but for an adult—a grown _man_ —to take out his anger in a physical manner on a little child…It reminded Severus too much of things from his own past that had been laid to rest but not yet forgotten.

But if he revealed himself now—

The front door slammed shut behind the Dursleys. He stood there for a long moment, thinking. Finally, he returned to his bench, pulled out another cigarette, and began to plan.

At last he Apparated away to Hogsmeade where he made the long walk back up to the school. Dumbledore would need to be alerted that Severus would be stealing the Potter girl and he would be stealing her today.

Considering Dumbledore did not yet know that Severus watched over the girl so closely, he was sure that the following conversation would be a variety of painful and humiliating emotions. But he had made an oath, to Dumbledore, to Lily's memory, to himself that he would keep the girl safe. That oath did not just take effect when she became old enough to attend Hogwarts—that would be too convenient. He spent nearly every day of his summer sitting on the bench in front of the Durlsey's home, watching. To his knowledge, no one had ever known how he spent his summers, much less the sole occupant of his vigilance. If he had his way, no one ever would have known; however, if there was one thing Severus was good at, it was debasing himself for others' benefits.

Under the old man's gaze, Severus came clean: Polyjuiced as a boy from Cokeworth, he had been spying on the girl for years. He spoke of everything that he had seen, all the instances of neglect and bullying, the occasional occurrence of abuse. He had been preparing for this moment for years; the fact that he had waited until the girl was nearly eleven should have been a testament to his self-control.

"I will remove the girl and bring her to Hogwarts where she can finish out the rest of the summer and join the other students for term."

Albus had listened to the speech from start to finish with nothing more than the occasional question. Once the younger man had spoken his part, the older wizard stood and went to the window to look out over the grounds, watching the sun begin to set.

"It sounds as if the Durlseys have truly been remiss in their treatment of young Harriet. However, I can't allow you to take her from their home."

" _Why—not?_ " Severus asked through his teeth.

"I knew ten years ago when placing Harriet in their home that they were not…kind people. Perhaps if I explain my worries to you, you will understand my reasoning. I wish that you had come to me long ago—I might have been able to save you the trouble.

"As it is, there are the blood wards. Yes—I see the look on your face, Severus—you have given strong reasons against the importance of the blood wards, and while I do not entirely agree, I do admit that until Tom's return, the blood wards are not key and are not the only method of protection we have to offer her.

"However, the blood wards were not my only reason for placing Harriet where I did. I knew that the Dursley's would be very…hesitant of magic. I knew that they would not fully understand the part Harriet played in Tom's downfall. In our world, she is famous—a figure in history books. Such things could go to any child's head." He turned away from the window to look at Severus more closely. "If necessary, she will be our only hope against Tom and his followers. I did not want to place the wizarding world's hopes on the shoulders of a pretentious, arrogant child."

"That is where you made your fatal mistake," Severus said. "A child that faces such levels of neglect and abuse as the girl has can face behavioral effects for the rest of her life. Some of them grow up without the ability to empathize—how would the wizarding world's hopes look, then? Or if the girl no longer has the capabilities to stand up for herself?"

Albus looked grave. "I admit, I am human and have the capability to err. Alright, Severus. Bring the girl. I can make accommodations—"

"Accommodations have already been made."

"Oh and Severus?"

He turned.

"You are looking remarkably Snape-ish. Might I suggest another swallow of Polyjuice?"

#

Severus waited until the lights in the upstairs bedrooms had gone dim, and then waited more. He gave Petunia extra time to fall asleep (hadn't Lily always complained about insomnia?) before slipping quietly to the backdoor. It took a wordless flick of his wand to undo the lock. Hesitating, a doubt pressed at the back of his mind: the blood wards. They protected the girl from the Dark Lord and his followers—would it recognize him as a former Death Eater? Would he even be granted entrance into the house?

Would it kill him?

Then he would have died trying to rescue Lily's daughter.

But he needn't have feared—nothing happened. Inside the house, it was cool and quiet. There was the distant hum of the air conditioner clicking on. The kitchen was pristine and he scowled when considering how often child slave labor had cleaned such a house. Now that he hadn't dropped dead upon entering the house, there was just the matter of finding the girl, which would not be hard at all. Inside of his jacket rested a letter. He had memorized it after taking it off the owl that had arrived earlier in the afternoon. Harriet Potter, The Cupboard under the Stairs.

Considering there was only one staircase, it was deductive work Severus believed even his first year students capable of completing.

He rested there for a moment, listening, startled when someone whispered out of the darkness. A quite voice entreated him, begging to be let out of her prison. Clenching his wand more like a madman might clench knife, he slashed at the lock on the door, watching it disappear altogether. Severus heard the quiet rustling as she stood and tested the doorknob. It creaked open and two eyes of the brightest green peered out at him from the darkness.

 _Lily._

"Mr. Prince," she breathed. "What are you doing here?"

"I want tea," he said because it was the first thing that came to mind and because the girl looked starving. "Will you join me?"

#

Mr. Prince was in Aunt Petunia's kitchen making her _tea_. The tea was quite good as well, perhaps the best she had ever had. He offered her sugar and milk and when her cup ran empty he levitated the kettle over to refill it. It was one of the kindest things anyone had ever done for her, and most easily the strangest night of her life. Though the accompanying day had been quite strange as well.

After they had both had enough tea to last them for a week, he reached inside his jacket and removed a letter. It was of thick, yellowed paper and emerald green ink that glittered blackly in the moonlight.

It was for her, and it said the most miraculous thing.

"What is your answer?" He asked.

"Yes, yes, a thousand times over. What do we do now?" Harriet whispered.

He stood, waving his wand until the kettle and cups and saucers had all reverted to their original spots. "I will send someone for you—a teacher from Hogwarts. He will explain the situation to your guardians and will take you to the school."

"Thank you," she breathed.

"Thanks are unnecessary," he said as he closed the backdoor behind him. Harriet, quiet as a cat, slipped back into her cupboard. Somehow, the lock was missing, but she closed the door behind her. Though sleep felt quite impossible, after a while, she _did_ sleep and when she slept, she dreamed.

#

Severus had to wait until the morning before he could begin to make preparations, because not many stores were open in the dead of night.

In the business district there was a used-clothing outlet. He stopped there first, putting out his cigarette before entering. There was rack after rack of clothes, cheap but sturdy, for every size and age. A bored looking teenager was sitting behind the counter reading a magazine, yawning, and sipping from a coffee. She looked up and nearly spilled her coffee down her front. Her face twisted into a particularly _stupid_ look, one that Severus was almost entirely unused to seeing in his other form.

But he was a younger man from Cokeworth this morning and not Severus Snape.

"I need clothing for a child." He held up his hand to the center of his torso. "This tall, a girl, very thin. Eleven."

The girl (nametag read Jenn) scrambled to help him. "Colors? For what weather?"

"Ireland, year round. Nothing impractical." After a moment of thought. "Nothing _pink_. Or yellow. Purple is fine, if you must—"

Jenn smiled. She looked him up and down, taking in his thin form swathed in blacks. "I think I know what you're looking for."

"And undergarments as well—whatever a little girl would need."

Suddenly, Jenn didn't seem so friendly. Perhaps a man his age, too young to be shopping for a daughter, asking for a little girl's undergarments was a little suspicious. "Your sister?"

"My niece," he replied coolly.

By the time he left the store, he had bags filled with jumpers and pants and socks and shoes and everything else that the girl might have needed, all in a proper size for her—and if it wasn't, he would transfigure it to fit her, not like the ridiculous castoffs of Dudley's given to her by Petunia.

Bags in arm, he ducked down an alley. If anyone had glanced down after him, they would have found that he had somehow disappeared, almost like magic.

In the Durlsey's backyard was a long length of hedge, a few feet away from the privacy fence. It was there that Severus Apparated to avoid being seen. He Disillusioned himself, sat on the patio furniture, and waiting for the Polyjuice to wear off. For what he was about to do, he wanted very much to be Severus Snape.

He closed his eyes, fighting off exhaustion, but behind his lids was an image of the little girl inside. She was almost always there these days: her, or her mother, but never both, because he had never seen both together. They might as well have lived on two separate planes of existence.

Though he considered himself to have a very secretive nature, he was fallible enough to know that preparation was the key to any plan's success. He spent days looking through Cokeworth for the perfect person to Polyjuice into: someone tall and thin like him worked best, so that there was minimal necessary changing of clothes should any transformation go awry. Someone not so unattractive as to be unable to avoid notice, but no one so attractive as to demand notice.

The stockboy from Cokeworth—whose name was certainly not _Prince_ —was tall enough, plain enough, but also didn't completely offend Severus with his dark clothes (though the ear piercing seemed a little frivolous). It had been nearly three years ago when Severus first snuck into the eighteen-year old's house and stolen his hairbrush, and he'd been doing it periodically ever since, mostly for the hairs but also for the pleasure of imagining the boy's frustration at all his missing hairbrushes.

His disguise was the only thing that kept him from panicking the morning the girl was thrown out into the yard just feet from his Disillusioned body. For a while he had simply stood there, smoking, taking her in—he'd never been so close to her before.

She was truly the spitting image of her mother. If he hadn't known that Lily had chosen to procreate with Potter, he might have assumed she had produced almost asexually and that the girl was simply a carbon copy of her. The long red hair, the eyes—but it wasn't _quite_ a copy. The girl's face was rounder, though that might disappear with age. And those fucking hideous glasses—whose brilliant idea had _those_ monstrosities been?

And because even the best plan could allow for some wiggle-room, he decided to reveal himself. After all, the time would be coming when Severus would take her away from Number 4 Hell, and establishing some trust from her could become very beneficial.

In the Durlsey's backyard, Severus prodded at his nose. It was feeling decidedly longer, and it had been several hours since he'd last taken any Polyjuice. Removing his camouflage, he saw that where his hair had previously been fair, it was now dark and inky. Standing, he sheathed his wand in a spot where it could be easily brandished and stalked to the front door.

He was sure that his talk with the Durlseys would go well.

#

No one had bothered trying to let her out of her cupboard, so no one yet knew that the lock had disappeared. Harriet laid on her mattress, smiling up into the darkness. Early in the morning, she had put aside all of the contents of her room that she might want to take with her to Hogwarts including her favorite story books and the only pair of pants she owned that fit her properly. It wasn't much, but it was all she had. Even then, she would have left all of it behind for the chance to leave the Dursley's.

It wasn't until the early afternoon that there came a sharp series of perfunctory knocks on the Durlsey's front door. Privet Drive was often visited by various solicitors who wanted to sell Aunt Petunia the very best vacuum cleaner in all of Europe or who had a tonic that would make Uncle Vernon's hair grow back in the way it used to; however, Harriet suspected that the person standing outside the door was no solicitor. She slid off of her bed and over to the cupboard door to press her ear against it and listen in better.

But she needn't have been listening to carefully, because as soon as the front door opened, Aunt Petunia screeched in a manner that would have impressed any banshee. There were the sounds of a struggle, as if she were trying to slam the door shut but there was something in her way.

Harriet thought that now would be as good of a time as any to reveal herself. She crept to the cupboard door and cracked it open, wincing at the sunlight. Aunt Petunia had lost her fight with the door and now stood at the foot of the stairs, a hand over her mouth as if she might be sick.

Standing in the doorway was a man similar to Mr. Prince in height and build, only this man looked to be a few decades older. His hair was long like the younger man but dark black and looked decidedly fine and perhaps a little greasy. His skin was so fair it was sickly and seemed to glow, as if _he_ was the one who had spent his whole life in a cupboard. He was scowling at her aunt, giving her a look of such pure loathing that Harriet was surprised the woman didn't burst into flames or something similar. The look was so decidedly _Mr. Prince_ that she knew this was the man who would be taking her away.

"Hello," she said, forcing her voice to be louder than Aunt Petunia's shrieks. Both of them turned to see her and her aunt's shouts grew even louder. Feet could be heard overhead thundering on the stairs as Dudley rushed to see what the commotion was.

"No!" Aunt Petunia shouted at him. "Upstairs! Stay upstairs! There's a crazy man down here—"

The dark man snorted. "That's quite enough. Be quiet of your own accord or I will _make_ you."

Her aunt's mouth closed so quickly her teeth clattered together. Her face was paler than usual, completely devoid of color. She seemed to swoon and took a seat on the nearest stair step, staring as if she was seeing a ghost.

"I've come for the girl—she's coming to Hogwarts."

"No," Petunia croaked, not looking at all in the condition to be putting up any sort of fight. "We swore when we took her in that she'd not go to that school. She'd be normal—we'd _make_ her normal."

Harriet gaped. "You knew? You knew I was a witch all this time and you never told me?"

"Keeping secrets from the children?" The dark man made an unhappy noise in the back of his throat, though the nasty smirk on his face seemed to be growing by the moment. "You seem to be under the delusion that I plan to ask for your permission to escort Miss Potter off of the premise, in which case, you are to be sorely disappointed. The girl has already expressed wishes to attend Hogwarts, and it is her consent that matters."

Aunt Petunia reeled, fixing Harriet with a look of such deep betrayal that the girl flinched. _Take it back,_ the look said. Harriet looked fixedly towards the front door as if there was something particularly absorbing there, ignoring the heaviness of her heart. When her aunt realized Harriet would not tell the dark man otherwise, she turned back towards him.

"That old fool, Dumble-whatever, _he_ left her to _me_ ," Aunt Petunia hissed. "But I don't get one say in how she is raised?"

The dark man's eyes narrowed into black, dangerous slits. The room seemed to grow cool—or did she just have goosebumps? "One say? _One_? Did you believe that we would leave her here alone and not bother checking up on her? Did you think no one would know about the neglect or abuse? Consider the situation remedied. As far as I am concerned, your _one say_ is _one say too many_.

"Miss Potter," he turned to her suddenly. "Grab any things you wish to bring with you, and be quick about it."

She didn't need telling twice. When she arrived back out of her cupboard, skinny arms clutching a small stack of books to her chest (and wearing her finest pants), Aunt Petunia and the man were still arguing, only she was beginning to have trouble keeping up.

"—said that she is protected as long as she lives here—"

"Don't pretend you give one shite about the girl. She's the only thing standing between you and the fanatic followers of the maniac who killed your sister, but by no means are _you_ the only thing protecting _her_. The blood wards, while foolproof, are not the only effective means of protection magic is capable of."

Aunt Petunia looked near faint, her bony hand pressed over her heart. The man finally took notice of Harriet lingering in the doorway. He glanced her over and nodded sharply towards the door. She thought to look back and give a last glance at her aunt but changed her mind. She was too busy thinking anyway—maniac who had killed her mother? Harriet supposed she'd never bothered asking about the man driving the other car from the accident that had killed both of her parents. Now that she thought about it, she couldn't remember anyone ever mentioning another car in the crash—

"Excuse me, mister—"

"You may call me and I will answer only to Professor Snape or Professor or sir."

"Alright, Professor Snape, I was just wondering where your car was."

"In my pocket." He scoffed at the look of awe on her face. "It was sarcasm. There are far more efficient ways to get from place to place in the wizarding world. Just one such way is Apparition, a form of disappearing from one's current location and spontaneously transporting to another."

He sounded just like Mr. Prince when he did that, only Professor Snape was definitely a teacher.

"Do you know much about Mr. Prince, Professor?"

He snorted. "Mr. Prince is a very private man. Now, give me your books."

Producing a bag from seemingly thin-air, he opened it and allowed her to slip her books inside. There was a soft plop that, judging by the slight echo, proved the inside of the bag was much larger than she had thought. Then at his request, Harriet hooked arms with a strange man behind the hedges of her aunt's backyard. She just managed to catch a glimpse of the woman's wide eyes looking through the curtains at her before Professor Snape spun, and then they were gone.

#

Harriet did not know what it meant to 'Apparate', but she knew she didn't like it. It was as if her body was suddenly being forced through a straw, the pressure from an unseen force pushing on her eyes and her chest until breathing was almost impossible, and just when she thought it would kill her, her feet came firmly down on the ground.

Hands on her shoulders turned her just as she bent double to vomit. It splattered on her shoes and spread across the floor of what seemed to be a stone tower. Groaning, she wiped her hand across her lips and spat trying to get the acidic taste of bile from her mouth.

"Sorry," she said, face red.

"Next time, you will do better," he said, though it sounded more commanding than comforting. Harriet had a feeling that Professor Snape did not have any children on his own, but it was just a hunch.

The room they were in must have been very high up. Through its windows, she could see nothing but sky. The wind whistled through the windows, which was good as it was much warmer up here than it had been at the Dursleys.

"Follow me," Professor Snape said coldly. Without another word, he went out the door. Downward they went, Professor Snape leading the way, traipsing down so many steps that Harriet's legs began to ache. All along the walls were the most amazing portraits which looked nearly as old as the castle itself—and which _moved_. She had to try very hard to keep from tripping over her own feet, turning her head in every which direction and wishing she had at least a dozen more eyes.

"Watch where you're walking. You're going to break your neck," Severus snapped, though how he knew that she wasn't looking straight ahead while looking straight ahead himself was a mystery. Harriet frowned and did as she was told, instead watching the trailing, black robes of the man in front of her until they had reached flat ground. Then, she kept her head forward but allowed her eyes to wander.

Polished suits of armor and statues of the strangest looking people stood haphazardly by doorways and staircases. A beautiful runner down the hallway had thread constantly changing colors and showing the footprints of those who walked on it. Candles floated along back into their places on candelabras. People peered from their portraits and whispered behind their hands at the sight of her.

But the further they descended into the castle, the less cheery things became. The candles gave off a cooler, darker glow. On the floors that didn't have windows, it was sometimes difficult to see, though Professor Snape walked the halls as if he knew them very well. There weren't as many portraits or statues here, though the tapestries seemed older and more ornate.

Shivering in the cold, Harriet nearly bumped into the back of Professor Snape when he stopped suddenly in front of a bust of an aged, handsome man.

"This will be your room during the summer. Once the school term starts, you will be sorted into a House and will reside in the appropriate House dormitory. You may consider this room to be your own, but you will respect it and all other castle property, do you understand?"

"Yes sir," Harriet said, staring at the unopened door. What would be inside? Was it a real room, or would it be the same size as her cupboard? A cupboard here would still be a million times better than a cupboard at the Dursley's house.

"The password is Vermillion. I will give you time to unpack while I alert the Headmaster of your presence. Be presentable—he will want to speak with you."

"Yes sir. Sir—is Mr. Prince here?"

He gave her a long, expressionless look. "No."

And then he was gone, turning sharply and beginning back down the corridor. It didn't take long for him to blend into the darkness and become one with it.

She turned back towards the bust, unsure how a password was supposed to work.

"Vermillion?" She said tentatively. Suddenly the bust came to life, inclining its head. Behind it, the door clicked open. Heart thumping with excitement, Harriet pressed her hand against the woodgrain and pushed. Once inside, she gaped, taking it all in.

The carpets were burgundy, rich and thick, and felt marvelously under her bare feet once she kicked off her shoes. The walls were hung with tapestries depicting various scenes which often moved like the portraits, the most notable of which was a rather handsome elven man playing some sort of flute, which sounded quite beautiful. He often stopped playing to give her exaggerated winks that made her blush and glance around the room just to be sure no one had seen.

The mattress didn't creak when she rested on it, and the coverlet was plush and warm unlike the threadbare blanket the Dursleys had given her. On the nightstand rested a plate of delicious looking sandwiches, thick with meats and vegetables. She ate one and might have eaten more if her stomach hadn't felt dangerously full. There was a pitcher of fragrant juice which she sipped at but made her teeth hurt. When she mumbled under her breath, wishing she had water, a tall icy glass appeared where the pitcher had stood.

Harriet loved magic.

There was a beautiful bookshelf already filled with books. Harriet managed to make room for the ones she had brought. Taking them from the bag, she realized that it was much fuller than she had expected. Suspecting that Professor Snape had accidentally left his own effects in the bag, she glanced inside.

Clothes. All manner of clothes, shirts and pants and socks and even shoes. She pulled out a gray jumper and held it up—it was her size. These clothes were for her. Her eyes filled with grateful tears. She peeled off Dudley's old shirt and tugged on the new one. It felt strange to be wearing clothes that actually fit her—not to mention ones that were _soft_.

She had just began to organize the clothes into neat piles that she could put away (she was now positive that either Mr. Prince or Professor Snape had purchased the clothes for her as they were mostly in shades of white, black, gray, with the occasional emerald green) when a loud crack startled her into dropping a pile of matched socks, scattering them all over the floor.

Behind her, a small creature had appeared out of thin air. It was short and skinny, reminding Harriet very much of herself, with large green eyes the size of her fists and a sloping, pointed nose. It bowed very low, clad in a gown sewn of multicolored rags.

"Wispy is to help Miss to the Headmaster's Office," the creature said with a high, lilting voice. She gently coaxed Harriet's hand into her own. Despite her rather unattractive appearance, Wispy's hands were, leathery, warm, and comforting.

"Oh, of course," Harriet said. "Lead the way."

"We will be Apparating, Miss," Wispy said, giving Harriet barely enough time to understand just what that meant before snapping her fingers.

#

When she finally felt her feet land on solid ground, she took a handful of deep breaths to settle her stomach before cracking her eyes open. Harriet was inside one of the most beautiful rooms she had ever seen. Shelves along the walls were covered in old, fragrant books and instruments that she couldn't have named even if she had tried. In the corner was a perch, but there was no bird in sight. It was brightly lit by the sun streaming through the window, which when she glanced out offered a magnificent view of mountains.

Harriet had never been out of Surrey before, but she had a feeling she was somewhere far away.

Sitting behind an ornate desk was the oldest man Harriet had ever seen. He was wearing glittering turquois robes that made him quite an eyesore but perfectly matched the tall, pointed hat atop his head. His hair was stark white and long just as was his beard, obscured by the desk. His nose was long and crooked, as if it had been broken at least twice, and sitting on the bridge of it were glistening half-moon spectacles that did nothing to obscure the man's bright blue eyes.

This man was Albus Dumbledore—a wizard Mr. Prince had spoken of briefly.

"Hello, my dear. Lemon drop? I've become fond of them, myself." The man's voice was soft and quiet. Aunt Petunia's parents were dead, and Uncle Vernon's had never been so nice to her, but this man seemed to be the epitome of grandfatherly.

"That sounds nice," Harriet replied. She sucked on one of the tart candies and it soothed the ache in her stomach. Though he had been seated when she arrived, Professor Snape had chosen to stand by one of the windows. She thought to thank him for the clothes, but her face became red and her voice disappeared every time she thought about it.

"I believe an introduction is in order. My name is Albus Dumbledore."

"It's nice to meet you," she said. "I'm Harriet Potter."

The old man chuckled. "I am quite familiar with you my dear, although the last time we met was nearly ten years ago."

"Did we, sir?" Harriet asked, quite puzzled. "I'm sorry—I don't remember."

Professor Snape snorted from the corner. "That is because you were barely a year old."

"It's quite all right, my dear, and certainly not your fault. There is much between us that needs to be discussed, and I don't believe that there was time for Professor Snape to explain much. Shall I make tea?"

Harriet had never turned down food or drink in her life, and though she was quite full from her sandwiches earlier, she gladly accepted another cup of tea.

Then, he told her everything.

Harriet had been born to a very talented witch and wizard. Coinciding with her birth was the rise to power of a madman who called himself Lord Voldemort, who was responsible for many terrible acts taking place in the 70's and 80's. Harriet's parents, James and Lily, had been part of a resistance fighting against Voldemort, and this put them in terrible danger, which was culminated in 1981 when he broke into their home and murdered them both. Listening in silence, Harriet began to cry, and even the Headmaster seemed to grow teary-eyed. Out of her peripheral vision came a dark handkerchief that Professor Snape had transfigured out a doily that had been previously resting on the back of the vacant armchair by the fire. Harriet accepted gratefully, wiping her eyes.

"Keep it," he said quietly, returning to his place at the window.

"But sir," Harriet asked. "What happened to Lord Voldemort?"

"That is something no one knows for sure. There was something about you—when he cast the same curse he used on your parents to kill you as well, his powers broke. The entire house was destroyed, and Voldemort disappeared. No one is sure if he died or is simply in hiding. He's has not been spotted since that night. As a result, the following he created dispersed. As a result, you are very well known."

"Me? But why, sir? I didn't really do anything."

"No one is positive about the logistics of it, Harriet, but it undoubtable that you, unknowingly, assisted in his downfall.

"After that Halloween night, your only living relatives were the Dursleys," Professor Dumbledore explained gravely. "It was I who delivered you to your aunt and uncle ten years ago. If I had known the kind of treatment I was leaving you to, I would have found other accommodations."

Harriet's face burned. She nodded, unfolding and refolding the transfigured handkerchief in her lap. The old wizard looked at her sadly over the tops of his half-moon spectacles. "Harriet, I owe you a very deep and most sincere apology."

"Whatever for, sir?" She asked.

"I'm afraid that Mr. and Mrs. Dursley did not treat you with the care that you deserve." He glanced at the bruises on her thin arms. "I suspect that opposite is true."

"These are from Dudley, sir," Harriet assured him, face remaining red as a poppy. "Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon never hurt me." _At least, not often_ , she thought. "And Dudley, well, he's quite a bit bigger than me, that's all—"

"And the closet?" Professor Snape asked. He had been so quiet that Harriet had nearly forgotten he was there, brooding. He had turned away from the window and crossed his arms, body tense. "If you believe that every child grows up in a closet, then allow me to correct you."

Albus held up a weathered hand. "I did not mean to embarrass you, child. Please do not feel the need to excuse any behavior that has caused you pain.

"As much talking as we have done, I still think there is far more to be said, and no doubt you have a few questions of your own, which Professor Snape and I shall answer to the best of our abilities," Albus said, leaning back in his chair and stroking at his beard. "First and foremost—I want to be assured that Professor Snape was not too hasty in bringing you here. Are you sure that coming to Hogwarts is what you desire?"

The girl in question gaped. How could he _not_ know? "Yes, sir, very much so. It's already my favorite place in the world."

He seemed pleased with this response and smiled. "It is lovely. I have often found Hogwarts to be my favorite place in the world as well—particularly the Headmaster's quarters, as they have such delightful shag carpet. I think you will find that Hogwarts is a magical place, not solely because it is a magical school, but because it contains magical people and possibilities."

She glanced down at the handkerchief she was twisting in her hands and smiled. The action felt unfamiliar to her face. Was she doing it right? "I think I'm finding that already, sir."

Albus chuckled, watching her closely. "Perfect.

"Now, there are a few rules that I will ask you to respect while you at Hogwarts during the summer. Please avoid swimming in the Black Lake, strolling through the Forbidden Forest (most aptly named, if I may say so), and entering the third floor corridor. If you come to a door that is locked, you would more than likely be correct in assuming it is a room you are not to enter. While I believe this goes without saying, though the Weasley twins might disagree—oh don't worry about them dear, they're students like yourself, only a few years above you—do not set fire to the tapestries, as they are much, much older than the three of us combined and therefore commend a certain amount of respect.

"Do you have any questions?"

"A few," Harriet admitted quietly. She asked them as politely as she could over the next dozen minutes, and Professor Dumbledore answered them most kindly. 'Three meals a day are served in the Great Hall, which a house-elf would be more than happy to escort you to, if your nose doesn't lead you there first!' and 'Why I purchased my hat at Gladrags Wizardwear, of course—oh, is that not quite what you asked? I'm sorry my dear, I find that when I wear this hat in particular my thoughts often return to it. I suspect it is charmed—'

At last as the sun began to set, sending pinks and purples all over the office and causing the candles to start scrambling about and lighting themselves, Albus called out ("Wispy!") and the same small creature as before appeared.

"Wispy will help miss back to her room!"

"Can we take the long way this time?" Harriet asked. "Apparition makes me a little…nauseous."

Wispy seemed pained with excitement.

"Oh yes Miss! Come, let Wispy guide the way!"

Her hand was enveloped again in the same leathery warm grip. Her last glance back revealed the Headmaster turned to look at Severus who was lit up by the setting sun. Then, the door was closed.

#

Dropping himself into the recently vacated armchair, Severus fixed the Headmaster with a practiced look of loathing that could render even the oldest student into a babbling, terrified mess. As it was, such looks often had little or no effect on Albus—in fact, Severus wasn't even sure if the older man could see them at all.

"I demand that there be repercussions, Albus. I intend to travel to the Muggle's home tonight and burn it to the ground. You saw the girl for yourself, surely even you can't blame me for bringing her here."

"Harriet," Albus reminded him. "Her name is Harriet."

"I know her name," he snapped.

"While I find your obvious affection for the girl to be touching, I can't allow you to destroy the Dursley's home or to cause them any injury."

Severus snorted. "Only you would mistake arson for affection."

Albus smiled. "Only you would mask affection _as_ arson, Severus. I admit, I did not foresee that Harriet would suffer such cruelty at the hands of her own blood. Had I known, I would have never left her under their care; at least, not without some surveillance of my own. As it is, I do agree with you that the home is not suitable for her anymore. That is why I think she should only stay there for a week or two a summer from here on out."

"A week or two?" Severus whispered, eyes narrowed. "Have you any idea that kind of damage demented and dangerous Muggles can do in _a week or two_?"

"The blood wards, Severus. Do not forget them. Hogwarts has many protections, but against Voldemort—I apologize, Tom—the most effective protection Harriet has are the blood wards created by Lily's sacrifice. Should there ever be a time where Hogwarts is no longer safe enough for her, her aunt and uncle's home will be her refuge."

"The Dark Lord is gone."

"He will return, and Harriet will be in more danger than ever." There was a long pause while both men watched the other: dark eyes meeting light. "I must ask if you still intend to fulfill the promise you made in this very office all those years ago."

Severus did not need reminding what that promise was. He nodded stiffly. Dumbledore sighed with relief.

"Of course. I should not have doubted you." He paused for a moment to pop a lemon drop into his mouth. After various refusals, he no longer offered them to the Potions Master. "I have only one other question of you Severus before I leave you to your evening. It is about the prophecy."

He stiffened. "What prophecy?"

"The one regarding you and Harriet."

Severus stood so quickly that the armchair caught against the rug on the floor and nearly upturned itself. He looked down the crook of his nose, sneering impressively. "If you are speaking of _that_ prophecy—then you are mistaken. It might refer to Miss Potter, but it does not refer to _me_."

"There is no truth to it?" Albus asked.

"None." Without another word, Severus crossed the office in two long steps, jerked open the door and allowed it to slam shut behind him.

 **You will notice that the other chapters that were previously up have been removed. Never fear: I've already finished the new chapters 1 through 4 (which is what was previously posted). Instead of replacing them all in one fell swoop, I'm going to give this chapter a few hours to be read and then post chapter 2 and so on and so forth.**

 **Check back in two or three hours, there'll be something new for you.**


	3. The Ends and the Means

**NEW AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 **Greetings. I'm sorry for the woeful lack of updates, but that doesn't mean I haven't been writing for you.**

 **As it was, I was rather unsatisfied with the version of this story I had started. I began writing it on a whim and didn't even fathom how large it would be. I'm now planning to give it greater dedication, but that meant starting over and paying closer attention to detail and really playing around with the world JK created.**

 **There are some outstanding differences: new characters, entirely new scenes, and perhaps the strangest change I have made—Harriet is a redhead like her mother. I didn't make such a change lightly, but I do believe that it will come to give additional purpose to the story that couldn't have been given to it any other way.**

 **Some of these scenes will be familiar, but absolutely no chapter is a replica of what it was before. I thought of signifying new material in some way such as italics or bolding, but it was too intrusive to the reading. Skip any scene that you** _ **think**_ **you know at your own discretion.**

 **Please, settle in and be open to some changes in the world that I hope will make this palimpsest more enjoyable.**

* * *

 ***If you have not read the updated chapter 1 & 2 of this fanfiction (Aug. 13, 2015) please go and catch up before trekking onwards.***

The Ends and the Means

Back in her room, it wasn't long until her eyes were heavy enough for her to blow out the candles (asking the ones floating higher up to please blow themselves out, which they did with a huff) and crawl into her bed. It was hard to believe that she had awoken just that morning in her cupboard under the stairs, or that at this time last night, Mr. Prince was breaking into the Dursley's house. It seemed as if a lifetime had passed.

Lying there, she stared up into the canopy and thought about everything that the Headmaster had told her earlier in his office. While her mind swam with beautiful instances of magic and the history of the school, she thought more and more of her parents.

Could this truly have been the life they meant for her? It seemed too good to be true. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine how she might have grown up if her parents had lived: a childhood filled with magic and warmth, with a father who had dark hair and a mother who had green eyes. Getting her Hogwarts letter _the first bloody time it had been sent_. There would always have been food, and stories before bed when she was younger, and clothes that fit her, and gifts other than old socks at Christmas time.

While she did not want to spend her first night at Hogwarts crying, Harriet had learned when she was young that one couldn't always have their way—as a matter of fact, one almost _never_ got their way, not if their name was Harriet Potter.

Missing her parents more than she had ever before in her entire miserable life with the Durlseys, she fell asleep trying to imagine their faces, and once she slept, she dreamed of them.

But it was not a good dream; it was one of her nightmares, the kind so familiar to her that she was sure she'd had it again and again, only after the talk with Professor, she knew it was not just a dream: it was a memory.

A weak, useless Harriet cowering in her crib, a curtain of dark red hair on the woman standing with her back to her, arms spread out to protect her. Then, a high-pitched laugh that made her eardrums ache and her body tremble and a bright green light that washed away the crib and the hair and _everything_ —

A bony finger poked at her cheek. Crying out, Harriet sat up, throwing a fist towards the unseen assailant. It collided with a small creature who had been standing on her bed. Positive her hand would touch some kind of slimy, horrific monster, she was startled to feel leathery warmth. The creature she hit gave a shriek and tumbled right off the coverlet and onto the floor.

It was Wispy.

"Wispy is very sorry to have wakened Miss, but the Headmaster sent Wispy to escort Miss to the Great Hall for breakfast."

"Oh," Harriet croaked, pressing a hand against her racing heart. "Are you alright? I'm sorry I hit you—I was having a bad dream."

"Miss does not need to apologize! Wispy was right in the way of her fist!"

"Well you couldn't have possibly known where my fist would go, or even if it would go anywhere at all—"

"Miss must get up! Headmaster Dumbledore said that Wispy was to—"

"Yes, yes, alright, Wispy I'm getting up. Do you mind stepping out while I dress?"

Wispy gasped and covered her huge, green eyes. "Of course, Miss! Wispy wouldn't dare to watch!" The elf tried to leave the room while covering her eyes, but ran into the sofa on the way to the door. Parting her fingers, she peaked through to scuttle to the doorway and exited through.

Harriet had not slept well. There was a crick in her neck and a throbbing pain in her head that got twice as worse when she stood up. She dug through her dresser to find a clean outfit. In the bathroom (beautiful, porcelain with a claw-footed tub) she found a mirror that she frowned into while trying to comb through the tangled of her long red hair.

Wispy escorted her through the castle, showing her which steps on the stairs to avoid because they might well suck your foot in and steal your sock and shoe. The house-elf seemed to know all sorts of information about Hogwarts and beamed with pride at Harriet's enraptured face.

The Great Hall truly lived up to its name. It was a massive room with four long, mahogany tables that were well oiled and glistening. Huge windows allowed in bright streams of buttery sunlight, and when Harriet looked up at where the ceiling should have been, she could see only blue sky and great, puffy clouds. Despite its huge size, the only table occupied was the table at the far end that rested perpendicular to the four others. Seated here was a handful of professors; Professor Snape was not among them, but the Headmaster was seated at the center of the table with a short, stout witch whispering into his ear. He began to chuckle at whatever the witch was saying, glancing up to see Harriet at the other end of the Hall.

He waved his arm to welcome her and all conversation at the table stopped while the other professors watched Harriet make her way across the room, face reddening steadily.

"Good morning, sir," Harriet said.

"Isn't it?" replied Professor Dumbledore. "I had the loveliest dream last night about—well, you wouldn't be interested in any of that. Shall I introduce to you the other professors?

"Here is Professor McGonagall," he said gesturing to a severe looking woman wearing beautiful emerald robes and square-like spectacles. The woman gave a smile that was small but genuine, which made Harriet's stomach feel much less nervous.

Professor Sprout was the short woman who had been whispering in Professor Dumbledore's ear. She had a lovely, earthy smell that reminded Harriet of being outdoors. The only other professor was a very short man introduced as Professor Flitwick, who nearly fell of his chair in excitement to shake her hand.

"I wanted to introduce you to the Heads of House the term. Are you familiar with the different Houses here at Hogwarts?" Albus asked.

Harriet smiled at the familiar question, ignoring the ache in her chest for Mr. Prince. "Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflelump."

"Huffle _puff_ , my dear, Huffle _puff_. No, no, that's quite alright, there's no need for apologies," Professor Sprout said, taking pity on Harriet and offering her the chair next to Dumbledore. The girl frowned to herself. She had been saying it wrong all along and Mr. Prince had never bothered to correct her.

"Here comes Severus," Professor Flitwick murmured.

Professor McGonagall's lips thinned dangerously, a look that reminded Harriet very much of Aunt Petunia. "That man is still holding last year's House Cup over my head. He knows nothing about being a graceful winner."

"But you know all about being a sore loser, don't you Minerva?" Severus was wearing another pair of black robes that seemed almost identical to the ones he had worn yesterday, though it did look as though he had brushed his hair. McGonagall's eyes narrowed.

"Good morning, Professor Snape," Harriet offered. The man ignored her, choosing to take a seat on the other side of Albus and putting an entire two chairs between himself and Flitwick. She was beginning to see that the attitude he had taken with Aunt Petunia might not have been entirely circumstantial.

She chatted with Professor Dumbledore and the others (who were all very kind and avoided the topic of Harriet's arrival, acting as if it was perfectly normal to have breakfast with a student during the summer). Professor Snape stared resolutely at the other end of the hall while eating his eggs and did not even try to join the conversation.

"Sir," Harriet said to Professor Dumbledore. "I was wondering if I might write to Mr. Prince."

Dumbledore's eyes seemed to come positively alight. "Ah, Mr. Prince. I had forgotten about him—though how could I? Well, your letters are your own, my dear, and I'd go so far as to say that you might write to anyone whom you wished to write to."

"The only problem is that I don't know Mr. Prince's address, not even one little piece of it."

"That _is_ a problem," Professor Dumbledore said, stroking his beard. "It is a fortunate event however that I _do_ know Mr. Prince's address and that I can easily pass the letters on to him. I can't give you his address, however. That would be quite a breach of the man's privacy."

Professor Snape snorted, making Harriet frown. Did he think her silly, wanting to write to a friend? "Of course, I understand. Thank you so much Professor Dumbledore—I'm not even sure if he knows I made it to Hogwarts alright."

"Mr. Prince has a way of knowing such things," Dumbledore replied, sounding very much like _he_ was the one who had a way of knowing such things. He held out a plate to her. "Toast, my dear?"

After making plans with Professor Dumbledore to attend Diagon Alley with him in two days times, Harriet took her leave so that she could explore the castle and the grounds. It was a school of epic proportions with hundreds of staircases and hallways and rooms. It wasn't long until she began to notice that she was not as overwhelmed by the place as she should have been.

The French had a word for that sort of thing: déjà vu. She had overheard the word on television once before and had looked it up in one of the dusty dictionaries under her bed at Privet Drive. Déjà vu was when the unfamiliar felt familiar. It was like an echo of a voice, like catching the last few words of a spoken sentence.

If any child but Harriet had been alone in Hogwarts for the summer, they might have become lonely or lost. As it was, Harriet was quite used to being alone, so the occasional conversation with a Hogwarts professor was more than enough to satisfy any craving for human contact. It was also very easy to become lost in a castle with ever-changing staircases and rooms that had a habit of disappearing and reappearing somewhere new. But even after scouring as much of the castle as she could in a day's time, Harriet was always able to find her way to her destination.

Sometimes, she looked down a corridor for the first time and had a distinct feeling that she had walked the same corridor before. Sometimes she could predict where a staircase would lead or what statue might be sitting around the corner. More than once, she had blinked her eyes to clear away a strange dimness that seemed to come across them, a dimness that made things look older and younger at the same time.

Harriet supposed that she and Hogwarts were simply meant to be.

#

The last place she visited was the Black Lake. The afternoon sunlight rippled off of the waves and made her squint, wind whipping her hair around her face. She wondered what kind of creatures lurked in the lake's depths. Suddenly, from somewhere behind her, she heard the quick padding footsteps of a creature walking on all fours. She barely had time to turn before a large black shape had tackled her to the ground and was slobbering on her face.

"Oi! Fang, yeh big blubbering beast!" The creature was suddenly pulled off of her by the largest man Harriet had ever seen. He must have been at least twice the size of a normal man, his hair a mass of tangled, black threads with eyes as dark as Professor Snape's but infinitely more friendly. Tucked under his arm was a large, black boarhound still slobbering around the jowls. Under the man's arm, the dog looked more like a toy than a dog. "Sorry 'bout that—he's not usually so friendly ter strangers, no offense—"

"None taken," Harriet said, wiping slobber off of her cheek. "Dogs don't usually like me much."

"Well Fang seems to be taken with yeh." Once Fang's flailing limbs had settled, the large man gingerly placed the dog back down on all fours. It settled with panting exaggeratedly at Harriet, its floppy pink tongue making her smile.

"Are you a professor here?" Harriet asked the man.

"Ha! Look at me, forgettin' me introduction. I am Rubeus Hagrid, the keeper of keys here at Hogwarts," he spoke his title with such pride that Harriet could hardly help smiling back at him. He offered her a massive handshake which consisted of him holding onto her entire fist, surprisingly gently.

"I'm Harriet Potter," she said.

"O' course you are. Can't very well forget yeh, nor yer parents, can I?"

"You knew my mum and dad?" Harriet asked.

"That I did—thumpin' good witch and wizard, they were. Looked real handsome together. Shame what happened ter them." Hagrid seemed to grow misty-eyed, pulling a handkerchief the size of a small table cloth from inside his jacket and dabbing at his eyes with it.

"Perhaps—if it's not too much trouble—you could tell me about them sometime? My aunt and uncle never talked about them. I've never even seen a picture of them."

"WHAT?" Hagrid boomed, startling Harriet and causing Fang to whine and hide his eyes under his paws. "I told Professor Dumbledore those Muggles weren't good for yeh…not even a picture…James an' Lily Potter… Harriet I'd be more 'n happy to tell yeh about yer parents. Would you like to join me for tea?"

"Tea sounds perfect," Harriet said, excitement turning her stomach to butterflies. Hagrid escorted her across the grounds towards a large wooden hut that was his home, pointing out some features of the grounds that she had missed while Harriet listened with rapt attention.

* * *

 _Dear Mr. Prince:_

 _I am writing to let you know that I made it Hogwarts safely. You should have seen Professor Snape with Aunt Petunia—I thought she was going to have a fit with the way he was speaking to her. Not that she didn't deserve it._

 _The castle is beautiful, but I guess you already knew that._

 _Thank you, so so much._

 _Harriet_

#

"What _is_ this?" Severus asked, glancing at the greeting before tossing it back to the Headmaster's desk. Albus was sitting there, watching him too closely for comfort. Even as a boy, he had felt see-through under that gaze: not necessarily naked, but as if all of his secrets were there for the older man's reading.

"It's a letter to you. Harriet delivered it to me first thing this morning and seemed eager to ensure it would be received by its recipient as soon as possible."

"It's a letter to a fictional character. There is no _Mister Prince_. It was just the first name I could think of," Severus said, despising his dark humor at giving the girl his mother's maiden name. He shouldn't have bloody revealed himself at all. What had he been thinking?

"Harriet believes he is much more than some fictional character. To her, I would imagine he is something much greater—a hero, of sorts."

Severus scoffed. "A hero? Some punk from Cokesworth—a _hero_? Surely you can see the irony in such a statement."

"I see plenty of irony in that statement," Albus said. He nudged the letter back towards Severus who, scowling, picked it up off the desk already contemplating all the ways he could destroy it.

"Is that all?" He asked, heading towards the door. The Headmaster opened his mouth as if there was something else to say, but Severus was already disappearing down the spiral staircase.

The letter singed through his robes as he made his way back down to the dungeons. On the third floor, he stopped when something outside the window moving across the grounds caught his eye.

Miss Potter and Hagrid—hard to miss either of them, the girl with her vivid hair and the half-giant with his looming status. The man was holding nearly half a dozen large buckets which looked as if they were carrying nearly 15 liters a piece. The girl was carrying one as well, thin arms straining under the weight.

Not for the first time, he compared the girl to her mother. The likeness was…disturbingly uncanny (would it have been worse if she looked more like Potter? Perhaps—but it would have been a different kind of disturbing altogether, though one he might have been more willing to bear). The hair was the same, only a few shades darker, not often exposed to the brilliance of sunlight the way Lily's had been. The eyes he did not even try to recall; that would have been unnecessary.

But that stumbling, graceless gait? That certainly wasn't Lily's. Neither was the awkward, shy nature of the girl, and it had never been Potter's either.

Confronted for the first time with the thought that this child was not just a spawn of Lily or Potter but a creation all on her own, he pushed the thoughts away and continued back to the dungeons. He would put such matters from his mind until he could keep them away no more. Dwelling on such things was unhealthy—but then again, Severus had never been the epitome of health nor mental stability.

He'd had all the intentions to burn the letter, even going so far as to toss it into the grate and point his wand preparing to conjure the flames that would resort it to nothing but ash and smoke. Something stopped him—something unnamable.

In the end, he had put it with Lily's picture.

It was the only picture he had of her, one that had been taken during their final year at Hogwarts. True to her nature, Lily would hide off frame whenever he looked into it. She had been angry at him when the picture was taken, and they had never reconciled before her death. Looking at the picture was painful, so he had hidden it away. There, he also placed the girl's letter.

He spent the rest of the night sipping Firewhisky from his decanter, wishing for a drunkenness that would be nearly impossible for him to achieve. When he slept, he dreamed of Lily, of pacing the floor outside Gryffindor tower, waiting for her to come out, waiting and hoping…

He was not even hungover when his Floo flared the next morning. The girl had not been at Hogwarts for more than three days when the Headmaster came to tell Severus that she was missing and to ask if he could please offer his assistance in finding her.

" _Missing_?" Severus hissed after he stepped through the Floo and into the Headmaster's office. The older man was pacing, stroking his beard with a nervous nature that was so unlike him that Severus could not help but feel the echo of fear and uncertainty at the sight.

"I was supposed to accompany her into Diagon Alley today for her school items, but she did not arrive at breakfast. Wispy has reported that her bedroom is empty, though it looks as if her bed was slept in. I have already asked Hagrid to search the grounds and the outer remnants of the forest and Minerva is combing through the upper floors, but I do believe the more searching eyes we have, the better."

Severus nodded sharply.

"Oh, and Severus?" The Headmaster called. "I have often found that the ends really _do_ justify the means."

He gave a sharp glance at the older wizard.

"As have I," he said stiffly, tossing down the Floo powder and stepping through.

Severus would find the girl, one way or another.

His first stop would be the room he had given the girl in the dungeons. He fiercely ignored the ache of anxiety below his ribs and only relaxed when the tension had been replaced with his customary rage—thoughtless, foolish child, wandering away inside a castle that even he had mild difficulty traversing on its wiliest days. Why had she not called for that ridiculous elf for help?

These thoughts came to an end when he arrived at the girl's room. It was the Red Room, decorated in shades of deep burgundy and crimson.

"Vermillion," he hissed at the statue bust of Paracelsus.

The room was remarkably tidy for its occupant of an eleven year old, though Severus told himself that could have been due more to Hogwarts's house-elves than any quality of the girl's. Beside what Albus had said, there was not much more to see: it was a room, and the girl was not in it. He had a moment of internal dialogue before stalking to her pillow and (feeling very much like some pedophilic cretin) scouring it for any of her long, red hairs. There were several, and in a moment of foresight, he took the whole pillow instead and began his trek deeper into the school.

His office did not have the equipment he required, but his personal lab and quarters would. That was where he headed, acquiring the items and compiling them on one of his workbenches until there was a slew of jars, different sizes and makes. Without pause, he began to mix. The ingredients were expensive, but Albus would foot the bill, so who really gave a shite?

While the potion brewed turning from a milky color to a dark, burnt black and back again, he stared at the pillow. Until he added one of the hairs, there would still be a chance to turn back and scour the castle for the girl the way the others were—but what if there was no time?

 _What kind of trouble could a student have gotten into during the summer term?_

In his mind flashed images: his own extracurricular school activities as well as those of Potter and Black.

She could very well have been doomed.

Once the potion had settled into a grey, misty color, he deposited one of the hairs into it. This was the darkest magic he had performed since his youth when he had taken the Dark Mark. That he was now performing a spell to ascertain the girl's safety was an irony not lost on him.

Magic that required bodily effects such as hairs, blood, or anything of the sort were more likely to be deemed 'dark' magic. _I have often found that the ends really_ do _justify the means,_ Albus had said. The bloody man seemed to know everything, or at least all of the things one did not wish him to know, which was essentially everything of consequence.

As soon as the hair touched the surface of the potion, white smoke billowed up and obscured his vision. When it cleared, the liquid inside of the cauldron was so perfectly clear that he could see the pewter bottom.

"Show me her present," he hissed into the cauldron. Immediately the surface began to bubble, but when it settled all he could make out was darkness. Where the hell _was_ she? Obviously, somewhere without light. He could have seen her even if she had been dead, so long as there was light to see by.

He dipped his pointer finger into the cauldron, knowing the potion would have become cool to the touch as soon as the hair was added. When he pulled his finger away, it glowed silver as if he had dipped it into liquid mercury. "Show me to her," he said, and there began a gentle tugging on his finger as if some invisible creature had grasped him by it and was leading him towards the door of his lab.

Severus followed the tugging out into the hall. The pressure on his finger soon grew until it was nearly painful, until his finger had pressed itself against a rather ordinary looking door, wooden with a brass handle.

"That's enough," he said as his finger enthusiastically tapped itself on the wood. He wiped the digit on his robes until it came away clean. Grabbing the handle, he wrenched the door open not entirely sure what he would find on the other side.

The girl was curled up in the corner of the closet, head resting on a mop, fast asleep.

"Potter," he snapped, startling her awake. With the light from the hall, he saw she was clenching in her hand the handkerchief he had transfigured for her in the Headmaster's office. It made his chest tighten in a strange way that he blamed on indigestion. He supposed he was pleased he had transfigured it for her, though Severus thought he could count the number of selfless acts that pleased him on one of his hands with room to spare. "Is your room so unsatisfactory that you had to find refuge in a broom closet?"

Even in the dim light, the girl's face reddened impressively. She scrambled up, wiping away dust from one of the new jumpers that he (Mr. Prince, not him) had purchased for her. If anything, it showed how small she was and made her seem more pitiful.

"I'm sorry, sir. I haven't been sleeping well in my room and I guess—" She trailed off, looking at her surroundings. Her face was troubled. She hastily tucked away the handkerchief as if he had not already seen it.

"—you guess that you just have a penchant for cupboards and dark, enclosed spaces, do you?"

Her shoulders drooped, head hanging low. She shrugged and he felt a stirring of anger ( _this_ he was familiar with and it was most certainly _not_ indigestion), though not towards the girl in question.

"I fucking hate Petunia," he muttered.

"Sorry, sir?"

"Nothing," he snapped. "Follow me."

* * *

Within a handful of minutes, Harriet had been ushered down to the first floor where she found herself being poked and prodded by a matronly woman with soft greying hair and a stern face. The woman seemed to find dissatisfaction with almost everything about Harriet, turning her this way and that way and tsking under her breath.

"Too thin," she mumbled, running her wand up and down Harriet's spine. She eyed the bruises on the girl's arms disapprovingly making the Harriet cross them and frown. "Where did you find this child, Professor Snape?"

"A cupboard," Professor Snape replied unhelpfully.

"Now dear, there's no need to look so miserable. Come here and have a seat on this bed."

"But Madam Pomfrey, I really feel quite fine. I just haven't been sleeping well, is all—"

"Then this should only take a moment," the woman replied not sounding as if she believed Harriet in the slightest. Allowing herself to be sat down on one of the beds, the woman drew the privacy curtain between the two of them and Professor Snape, for which Harriet was quite grateful.

"Have you started your monthlies, dear?"

Face burning, Harriet only shook her head. The curtain might have blocked sights, but it looked far too thin to offer any privacy from sound, and the idea that Professor Snape might hear anything about Harriet's monthly times made her want to die with embarrassment.

"That's alright, most of us don't start until we're a bit older, but there are always exceptions to every rule. Now tell me about your sleeping troubles."

They could hardly be called 'troubles' in Harriet's opinion. She'd had nightmares ever since she could remember and it only seemed logical that the bad dreams would increase now that she was in a strange place (no matter how much she loved said strange place). Her bed, while large and comfortable, had started to make her nervous. Sometimes she awoke in the night feeling as though someone was watching her. She found that she felt much safer in a closet where if someone else was hiding it in she would most certainly know. It wasn't until she had found one the floor below her that she had managed to fall into any decent sort of sleep at all; now that she had, she felt quite rested.

"The nightmares don't bother me," she only half-lied. "It's just the trouble falling asleep and keeping that way."

Harriet left with a sleeping draught and a potion that would increase her nutritional absorption to help her body make the most of whatever food she could eat and keep down. After passing through the privacy curtain, she found that it had most likely been charmed to keep inside sounds in and outside sounds out because Professor Dumbledore and Snape were having an intense conversation that halted almost immediately on her entrance.

"Hello, Professor Dumbledore," said Harriet.

"Hello Harriet. Did you have a nice sleep?" Judging by the twinkling in his eyes, he knew just where Harriet had spent her night. Judging by the scowl on his face, Professor Snape didn't approve of Dumbledore's teasing.

"I'm sorry, Professor. I just—"

The old wizard held up a hand to stop her. "Not at all my dear, no apology necessary. I do hope however that if you find something about your stay unsatisfactory that you will bring it to our attention so that we might make you more comfortable here at Hogwarts. If you would prefer, I'm sure we can find you a different room, perhaps a tad smaller—"

"Oh, no, sir, my room is beautiful. I'll sleep there from now on. I'm sorry again if I caused any trouble."

"No harm done. It was quick thinking and intuition that led Professor Snape straight from his dungeons to your closet of choice, isn't that right, Severus?"

The man in question exhaled testily. "Quite, Headmaster. If we are finished here, I will take my leave." With an impressive billow of his robes, he exited. Professor Dumbledore turned to Harriet, struggling to hide a smile.

"He is quite relieved you were found safely, I assure you."

Though she doubted it, Harriet kept quiet. She had only known Professor Snape for a short amount of time, but she found him to be one of the most confusing people she had ever met—and definitely the most mysterious, after Mr. Prince. But if Mr. Prince had sent him to take Harriet to Hogwarts, he must have been trustworthy.

Harriet supposed trustworthy did not have to be synonymous with kind.

"My dear, you seem very lost in thought."

Harriet was jerked from her thoughts and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, sir."

"I have often found that a lengthy walk in the fresh air clears my thoughts. We still have a few hours of daylight left, and I would be most willing to accompany you to Diagon Alley if you would like to retrieve your school books and the like."

She smiled. "That sounds lovely, Professor."

They traveled by Floo via the Headmaster's office. Harriet found Floo to be a much better method of transportation compared to Apparating. So long as she was clear and loud, she was just about guaranteed to make it to her destination; perhaps she would be a little dusty, but it was better than vomiting on her own shoes.

She and Professor Dumbledore came out in a dim pub that did not look all that lovely. The man behind the counter caught sight of Dumbledore's robes (a beautiful rendition of an unfamiliar ocean, with accompanying waves and sea foam) and called out to offer him a drink.

"You could have tempted me on any other day, Tom," Dumbledore called out jovially. "As it is, I'm escorting young Harriet here to Diagon Alley to retrieve her school things."

The barman's shrewd eyes now fell on Harriet, bouncing back and forth between the young witch and aged wizard. A moment of realization passed over his face, like when one remembers that one has left the coffee pot on hours after leaving home. "Good Lord, is this—can this be—? Bless my soul. Harriet Potter…What an honor. Welcome back, Miss Potter, welcome back!"

Suddenly the entire bar had been upturned with every witch and wizard wanting to shake Harriet's hand and congratulate her on not allowing herself to be killed by a madman, though she felt that she had little if nothing to do with it. Palms sweating with nervousness, Harriet looked to Professor Dumbledore, begging for a reprieve from the handshakes and pats on the back. Just a week ago she would sometimes go about her entire day without being acknowledged by a single person. Now an entire tavern could barely seem to let go of her hand.

"Ah—! Quirinus!" Professor Dumbledore placed a hand on Harriet's shoulder and began to steer her towards the edge of the crowd where a man stood looking just as pale and nervous as Harriet herself, perhaps even more so if his twitching eye was any indication. "What a most fortunate surprise!"

Aside in her ear, he whispered: "Harriet this is Professor Quirrell. He will be one of your professors at Hogwarts."

The man was positively trembling when he offered Harriet his hand. "Q-Quirinus Quirrell at your service."

"Tom," Harriet introduced, offering her hand.

There was a moment of silence. Professor Dumbledore had turned his head to stare at her. Mouth gaping, Harriet shook herself gently as if to wake herself from a daze.

"Err—Sorry—I'm Harriet—"

"N-n-no introduction is n-necessary," Professor Quirrell assured.

"Professor Quirrell teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts," Professor Dumbledore said, watching Harriet closely.

"N-n-not that you n-need it, eh, P-Potter?" The man tittered nervously. His eyes slid around the room as if he were looking for something, or afraid that someone was looking for _him_. Unlike some of the other more enthusiastic patrons, Professor Quirrell took his leave quickly and disappeared into one of the dark corners of the room.

Ushering Harriet through the bar, the two of them ended up in a small courtyard that looked as if it had seen better days, barren save for trashcans and weeds.

"Harriet, is there a reason you introduced yourself as Tom to Professor Quirrell?"

The girl watched, frowning, as Professor Dumbledore began to tap a specific brick on the courtyard wall with his wand.

"No, Professor. It sort of just slipped out." After a moment of quiet, the girl started. "I must have been thinking of the barman. His name was Tom, wasn't it?"

Dumbledore gave a gentle smile, tucking his wand back into his robes. "Indeed it was."

There was no more time for conversation, because the brick wall that Professor Dumbledore had tapped began to tremble and shimmer, bricks turning and collapsing in on themselves until there was a small hole the size of a fist, then a cat, then the Durlsey's television set—

And on the other side was Diagon Alley. It was a twisting, cobblestone street packed to the brim with witches and wizards. Unlike any Muggle business street she had ever been on, the store's windows were filled with stacks of parchment and wet-start fireworks and mirrors that called out beauty advice to passing customers. A few children in an alleyway were playing a game on the sidewalk that look remarkably like marbles but with stones that would spit foul smelling liquids at losing players' eyes.

The grandest building of all towered above the others like a white monument, its doors of burnished brass gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight. Standing outside was the queerest little creature Harriet had ever seen, a head shorter than her and clad in a scarlet and gold Gringotts bank uniform. Dumbledore greeted the goblin by name and it gave him a cool nod and a deep bow.

Inside were rows of doors and counter spaces teeming with activity. Being led from one door was a woman carrying a handbasket filled with clear, glistening jewels that Harriet refused to believe could be diamonds. At one counter was a couple bickering back and forth with a goblin who was examining a gold nugget the size of a small apple.

At a free goblin's request, Harriet rummaged her golden key from her pocket and allowed the creature to examine it carefully. Professor Dumbledore also expressed wishes to remove an item from a vault of his own. Soon, an unfriendly looking goblin named Griphook had ushered them into a small cart that rested on a very precarious looking track.

The three of them piled into the cart together, Dumbledore removing his pointed hat to rest it on his lap. Harriet looked in vain for seatbelts or restraints, but before she could open her mouth to inquire about any, the cart had jerked into movement leading them through twisting tunnels so narrow that Professor Dumbledore had to duck his head and huge caverns that Harriet could not see the tops of. She tried to keep track of all the different directions the cart turned, but it all moved too fast.

At last they stopped at a vault. Feeling quite nauseous, Harriet handed Griphook her key, listening to the various clicks of the tumblers as the door opened. Inside was a heap of golden, silver, and bronze coins, some stacked as high as the ceiling and in piles as tall as her knees.

"Sir, this can't be for me," Harriet said, mouth gaping. In all her life at the Dursley's, she'd never been given any money that was her own. What would they think of her now, knowing that beneath wizard London was a vault filled with gold that was solely hers?

"Your parents loved you very much. This is just one of the ways they were able to express that," Professor Dumbledore replied, handing her a small sack for her to scoop Galleons into. "Make sure you take enough, it shall have to last you for the school year."

Bag weighing down her knees and cheeks uncomfortable from smiling so much, Harriet climbed back into the cart and they were off again, this time heading to vault seven hundred thirteen. She was curious to see what the Headmaster's vault looked like, as he was no doubt a well off wizard.

The vault they arrived at was very different from her own. It required no key. Instead, Griphook placed one long fingernail on the door, drawing it down, and the door dissolved away into nothing. Where there should have been gold, there was nothing but a grubby little package resting on the center of the floor—if she hadn't been looking so carefully, she might have missed it. Dumbledore tucked it deep into his robes and climbed back into the cart, looking as though they hadn't stopped at all.

Harriet wanted very much to ask what had been in the vault, but every time she opened her mouth, she imagined she could hear Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon snarling, 'Don't ask questions!' right before delivering a sharp smack to her temple. Professor Dumbledore had never treated her so rudely, but there was a first time for everything.

Back into Diagon Alley, Professor Dumbledore asked if Harriet minded very much if he were to slip off to Slug & Jigger's Apothecary to purchase a few ingredients for Professor Snape.

"I am afraid he needed to make a rather expensive potion on my behalf today and might have exhausted some of his wares."

Stomach in her throat, Harriet agreed to enter Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions alone. Madam Malkin was a pleasant looking witch swathed in mauves. She gave Harriet a single glance up and down.

"Here for your Hogwarts robes, dear? I've got another youngster just being fitted—"

In the back of the shop was a pale boy with a pointed, aristocratic face. Buzzing around him was a tape measurer that seemed to be acquiring measurements of its own accord. Another stool was produced and Harriet was guided onto it while Madam Malkin pulled a robe over her head and began to pin it to the right length.

"Hello," said the boy. His voice reminded Harriet very much of Aunt Petunia's manner of speaking. "Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes," Harriet said.

"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice. "Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me on and I'll smuggle it in somehow."

"Couldn't you get in trouble for that?"

"Only if I'm caught," he said. "Have you got your own broom?"

"No," said Harriet.

"Play Quidditch at all?"

"I'm sorry," Harriet said as politely as she could. "I don't know what that is."

The boy's manner changed. His face twisted as if he had just stepped in something squishy on the street and it had clung to his shoe. "Muggleborn, are you?"

Harriet wasn't positive what this meant, but considering Mr. Prince had explained that Muggles were non-magical folk, she put two and two together. "My parents were magical, but they died when I was young. I grew up with my aunt and uncle—they didn't know anything about magic."

The boy looked at her as if she had admitted to having a terminal disease. "That's terrible," he said. "Muggles are truly foul. I can't imagine having to live with them."

He extended a hand, which was easy considering Madam Malkin's assistant had just pulled both of his arms outward to see how his robes dangled. Harriet reached out gingerly and shook it.

"I'm Draco Malfoy," Draco introduced himself.

"Harriet Potter," she replied.

Draco gaped, suddenly looking not nearly so much an aristocrat as he did a normal eleven year old boy. She smiled shyly.

"Blimey, are you really?"

She nodded.

"Do you know what house you'll be sorted into? No one really knows until they get there, I suppose, but I know I'll be in Slytherin. All our family have been. It's the house safest from Muggleborns."

"I'm not sure," Harriet said honestly. "Professor Snape is Slytherin's head of house, isn't he?"

"You know Professor Snape?" Draco seemed more please with her by the moment, but suddenly his face twisted. He nodded, pointing towards the window. "I say, look at that—that's Professor Dumbledore."

Professor Dumbledore was talking to a short witch holding a tray of necklaces and rings, talking so animatedly with her hands that she dropped half of her wares into the street and both of them ducked down to pick them up.

"He's the Headmaster at Hogwarts," Draco said before Harriet could say a word. "Father says that he's the worst Headmaster the school has seen in over one hundred years. Just look at his robes—"

Before Harriet could interrupt, Madam Malkin said, "That's you done, my dear," and Harriet, not very sorry for an excuse to stop talking to the boy, hopped down from the footstool."

"I'll see you at Hogwarts. Perhaps we can sit together on the train," Draco called out at her retreating figure.

At the sight of her coming towards the door, Dumbledore motioned with a hand for her to follow and slipped out of sight. Once Harriet had caught up to him, she saw he had a bag tucked under his arm from Slug & Jiggers.

"Are you quite alright, Harriet?" He asked while they purchased Harriet's parchment and quills from Scribbulus Writing Instruments. Since she had enough funds, Harriet also purchased color-changing ink and ink that was invisible except for the person whose eyes the writing was intended.

"Yes," Harriet said as truthfully as she could. She hesitated. "May I ask you a question sir?"

"You may always ask me question Harriet, and I will answer it to the best of my abilities."

"Do you know the Malfoys?"

Dumbledore smiled gently. "I saw you speaking to young Mr. Malfoy in Madam Malkin's. Did he trouble you?"

"A little," Harriet admitted.

"Was he unkind to you?"

"No, sir. He was nice to _me_ , but not as nice about you, Professor."

"Ahh," Dumbledore said. "I think I understand. Draco's father, Lucius, has principles that differ greatly from my own. He disagrees with my administrating methods."

"Why?"

"That is a little more difficult to answer."

Harriet frowned, shoulders lowering. "Sorry, sir."

"There is no need to apologize, Harriet. The Malfoys are a very old wizarding family. They believe in something called 'pure blood' in opposite to Muggleborns. They don't believe that those from non-magical blood should have the same rights or privileges as those from wizarding families. Some even believe they should not be allowed at Hogwarts—but it is not their decision to make."

"Are Muggleborns not allowed into Slytherin, sir?"

Professor Dumbledore traced the brim of his pointed hat, face deep in thought. "It is not impossible, but it is not likely, either."

"That's where Draco said he was likely to be sorted. I don't think I'd like to join him."

"Houses at Hogwarts are not so black and white. Many believe that only the brave are sorted into Gryffindor, but I have seen plenty in my time as professor and as headmaster come from Gryffindor with cowardly spirits. Some believe that being sorted into Slytherin makes one destined to evil. Such students as Voldemort have been deemed proof of such a theory, but many brave and moral men have come from Slytherin house. We should not be so quick to judge—not to judge others, nor to judge ourselves."

"I didn't know that Voldemort went to Hogwarts," Harriet said.

"It was a very long time ago, when I was a Transfiguration professor."

Despite Dumbledore's words, Harriet found Voldemort to be just another reason why she didn't want to be in Slytherin.

"But if the Sorting Hat places us into our houses based on our qualities, why is it that some Gryffindors aren't brave and the like?"

Dumbledore smiled. "There are more than four types of witches and wizards, and I've often found that qualities one possesses at eleven are not as a rule qualities one possesses when older."

With her questions satisfied (and feeling notably more upbeat), Harriet and Professor Dumbledore continued her shopping. They bought her school books at Flourish and Blotts which smelled strongly of old parchment and leather. There were books on every subject and of every size, filled with languages Harriet had never even heard of and bound in silks or leathers of every color. Once weighed down with books and telescopes and cauldrons, Harriet ducked into the Magical Menagerie. Students were allowed to bring with them to Hogwarts an owl, a cat, or a toad. While owls were beautiful and toads were endearing in their own, slimy way, Harriet decided to buy a sleek, black cat with eyes as green as her own. The old witch who took her Galleons said that she was pre-owned and named Bast.

"Quite fitting," Professor Dumbledore said, looking from cat to girl and back again.

The last item on Harriet's list was a wand, and it was the stop she had been most eager and nervous for. What if they couldn't find her a proper wand? Would she have to go back and live with a Dursleys?

Above the thin, shabby shop door read _Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands Since 382 B.C._ in faded letters. Through the shop window, Harriet could see a single dusty wand on a faded purple cushion. It did not look as impressive as Harriet hoped it would be. The inside of the shop wasn't much more impressive—there were thin boxes stacked from floor to ceiling in some spots with everything covered in a thin layer of dust that made her nose itch. From the back appeared a small, old man with silvered hair and pale, glistening eyes.

"Harriet Potter," the man acknowledged immediately. Harriet shifted awkwardly, glancing at Dumbledore who had taken a seat on a spindly chair in the corner and seemed to be busy unsticking two lemon drops from each other.

"I had wondered when I would be seeing you. It seems like only yesterday your mother and father were in here buying their first wands. I can remember them vividly—your mother's was ten and a quarter inches long, willow, excellent for charm work which I believe she excelled at. James Potter, his wand was eleven inches, pliable." The man had drawn so close that he and Harriet were almost nose to nose. Mr. Ollivander's eyes were centered on Harriet's forehead where, beneath the fringe of her bangs, rested a distinct scar.

"I'm saddened to say that I sold the wand which gave you that scar," he said quietly. "Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands…well, if I'd known what that wand was going to do…"

He shook his head as if to bring himself out of a daze and then, to Harriet's relief, spotted Dumbledore. His eyes grew shrewd and his lips quirked strangely.

"Hello Albus. Your wand…now your wand is truly special, isn't it? Fifteen inches, elder—"

Dumbledore chuckled, interrupting. "Garrick, you truly know your wands."

Mr. Ollivander looked insulted at the mere suggestion of otherwise. He asked Harriet to hold out her wand arm and began to measure her from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round her head. He explained the different wand cores and woods. "Do not worry about performing any special kind of magic, Miss Potter. It is the wand that chooses the witch or wizard, and it acts of its own instinct."

Hearing that just made Harriet more nervous. If no wand chose her, was there nothing she could do? She didn't have long to be nervous before Mr. Ollivander was placing wand after wand in her hand. She barely had time to grasp them before he would slip them from her hand and replace it with another. Soon, there was an alarmingly large pile of rejected wands, the sight of which made her stomach turn. There would be no wand for her, of _course_ there wouldn't—

Then, Harriet took a wand that made her fingers tingle. When she waved it, a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls. Harriet beamed while Mr. Ollivander and Dumbledore gave her a polite round of applause.

Mr. Ollivander retrieved a long, thin box that Harriet's wand nestled into perfectly. While he wrapped it in brown paper, he mumbled under his breath: "Curious…curious."

"Sorry," said Harriet, "but what's curious?"

Mr. Ollivander fixed Harriet with his pale, knowing stare.

"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Miss Potter. It just so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather—just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother gave you that scar."

#

Less than twenty minutes later, Professor Dumbledore had purchased both of them wildberry lavender ice-cream cones from Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. What she tasted was delicious, but Harriet didn't have much of an appetite. She couldn't help but think over what Mr. Ollivander had said. She was not nearly as excited about her wand anymore, not when it was so closely related to Voldemort's.

Harriet loved magic. She had only known of its existence for a few months, but it had already become the most important thing in the world to her, the thing on which she placed all of her hopes. But she couldn't help thinking of how much simpler life had been with the Dursleys when her days were all the same, where pain and loneliness were predictable, where her parents had died in a car crash and not at the hands of a madman.

She dipped her finger into her cone and dangled it through Bast's cage. The cat's tongue felt like sandpaper against her skin but brightened her spirits. Through the window of the shop, Dumbledore and Harriet watched the sky begin to turn beautiful shades of purple and pink.

Suddenly, Dumbledore stood, nearly dropping the remainder of his ice-cream cone.

"Harriet, I have just remembered. Hagrid told me that a flock of Flitterby moths has just matured. He planned to release them tonight, and it is expected to be quite a show. Would you be interested in joining me and some of the other professors on the Quidditch Pitch?"

Harriet was very interested. After Flooing back to the castle, she stopped by her room to leave her bags and to give Bast some food and water until her return. On a whim, she took her wand out of its box and placed it gingerly in her pocket before joining Professor Dumbledore in the hall to head down to the grounds.

* * *

Severus saw them while heading to the Forbidden Forest to gather dittany. The moths were great, souring creatures that glowed orange like beacons, lit up against the deepening twilight. Even as far away from the Quidditch Pitch as he was, he could see them hovering there.

Against his better judgement, the sight made him draw closer. They were all there: Albus who was mid-discussion with Hagrid and looked to be consoling the half-giant who sobbed into a handkerchief of epic proportions; there was Minerva and Flitwick and Sprout seated in the stands who took turns sipping from a chilled flask that he had no doubt held something entirely unexciting.

There was Lily's daughter, standing down in the grass and staring up at the Flitterby moths, mouth agape. One came close to her and she held out a trembling hand for it to rest on, becoming still as a statue so as to not startle it away. With a flutter of its wings, the moth took flight again and came towards him. He might have had time to duck away into the darkness of the stands, but he might _not_ have had time to as well, and he would much prefer to startle the girl than to be seen fleeing by her.

And she did seem startled. Hand clutching at her heart, she stammered a greeting. "Hello, Professor."

He inclined his head minutely. A piece of polished wood sticking out from the pocket on her jeans caught his eye. "I see you have your wand." He struggled not to grit his teeth at his own miserable small talk.

She seemed to remember it herself and frowned. "Oh, yes. Professor Dumbledore and I went to Ollivander's for it today."

"It doesn't please you." Judging by the deepening of her frown, he was correct.

"Well, I haven't really had the chance to use it, sir—"

A moment of silence, and then on a whim: "Raise your wand, Miss Potter."

Warily, she pulled it from her pocket.

"Not like that, like this," he said, removing his own wand and showing her the proper way to hold it. She squinted through the dark, readjusting her glasses. He performed a simple motion and made her copy him once, twice, again and again until it flowed smoothly like second nature. "Now point at the moth and repeat after me: _multicorfors_."

" _Multicorfors_ ," she said, and the moth instead of orange glowed a vivid green. The girl's face was lit up by it, mouth slack with awe. Severus smirked at her enraptured expression—children, so easy to impress.

He slid away while she was still watching the moth, and by the time she had turned to thank him, he was just a dark dot moving in the distance towards the Forbidden Forest.

* * *

 **You will notice that the other chapters that were previously up have been removed. Never fear: I've already finished the new chapters 1 through 4 (which is what was previously posted). Instead of replacing them all in one fell swoop, I'm going to give this chapter a few hours to be read and then post chapter 2 and so on and so forth.**

 **Check back in two or three hours, there'll be something new for you.**


	4. The Sorting Statues

**NEW AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 **Greetings. I'm sorry for the woeful lack of updates, but that doesn't mean I haven't been writing for you.**

 **As it was, I was rather unsatisfied with the version of this story I had started. I began writing it on a whim and didn't even fathom how large it would be. I'm now planning to give it greater dedication, but that meant starting over and paying closer attention to detail and really playing around with the world JK created.**

 **There are some outstanding differences: new characters, entirely new scenes, and perhaps the strangest change I have made—Harriet is a redhead like her mother. I didn't make such a change lightly, but I do believe that it will come to give additional purpose to the story that couldn't have been given to it any other way.**

 **Some of these scenes will be familiar, but absolutely no chapter is a replica of what it was before. I thought of signifying new material in some way such as italics or bolding, but it was too intrusive to the reading. Skip any scene that you _think_ you know at your own discretion.**

 **Please, settle in and be open to some changes in the world that I hope will make this palimpsest more enjoyable.**

* * *

 ***If you have not read the updated versions of chapter 1-3 (Aug. 13, 2015) please do so before reading this one.***

The Sorting Statues

 _Mr. Prince:_

 _Hogwarts is still going well. I've been helping Hagrid (do you know him? He's sort of the groundskeeper here and is very nice, though Aunt Petunia might think that his tea and biscuits could use some work) behind his hut with Flobberworms. I'm used to doing so much work at the Durlsey's house that not having anything to do during the summer is a bit strange._

 _I celebrated my birthday with the professors and Hagrid in the Great Hall. I think Professor Snape was too busy to come, but he probably would have made it rather gloomy. There was even cake! I've never had a cake for myself before. Not even a piece of Dudley's. It was the best birthday I've had so far._

 _School term is going to start soon. I'm very nervous. What House do you think I'll be sorted into?_

 _I'm still doing alright and I hope you are too._

 _Are you very busy and is that why you haven't written back?_

 _Harriet_

 _#_

The rest of Harriet's summer lasted the length of time it took for her to blink. Days were spent scouring unlocked rooms in the castle, hiding from Peeves (a very tricky poltergeist who had taken to stealing Harriet's glasses and trying to wear them as his own), assisting Hagrid with a variety of magical creature related chores, and practicing the spell Professor Snape had taught her at the Quidditch Pitch. She had even transformed her handkerchief to be a deep, forest green.

While a part of her was sad to see it end, another part of her felt like something just as beautiful was beginning. It was September 1st when Hagrid escorted Harriet into London to drop her off at Platform 9 ¾ where she would catch a train to take her back to Hogwarts.

"But Hagrid," asked Harriet. "Why could I just stay at Hogwarts and wait for the other students to arrive?"

"Professor Dumbledore didn't want t' rob yeh of riding the train with the other First Years," he explained, handing her her ticket. With her was her trunk packed with school items and a dark carrier that Bast was sulking in, mewling in indignation at the uneven swaying of the cart. Once she was sorted into her house at Hogwarts, her items would be transported to the dorm. Thinking about her red room gave her a faint stirring of sadness and she hoped it was not the last time she would be seeing it.

Hagrid left her with a cheery wave at Platform 3. He was drawing a lot of stares: he stood several feet taller than the tallest man there, his beard and hair looking as wild and uncombed as ever, his massive coat giving off occasional growling sounds so that he had to smack at the pockets and subdue whatever was hidden there.

"Just straight ahead, Harriet!" He called. "Best o' luck!"

Harriet smiled and waved back trying not to let her nervousness show on her face. She turned away from him before her façade could crack and began towards the higher platforms. She'd never had to catch her own train before; in fact, the Dursleys didn't even like to take her with them in the car. It only took a moment for Harriet to notice something that made her stomach sink: the only platforms were only whole numbers. Four, five, six, seven—but no five and a fourth, no seven and a half and…

No Platform 9 ¾. On one side was a big plastic number nine and over the other was a big plastic number ten. In between was nothing but a solid brick wall, though the sight of it gave her that funny déjà vu feeling, like something was tickling the back of her brain with light, spindly fingers. She forced herself to take several deep breaths but the breaths seemed to be increasingly short and coming closer together all the time. People passed her on her left and her right, all looking quite busy and oblivious to her and her plight.

What would she do? She had only ever traveled by Apparition (which she wasn't going to even _try_ to do on her own) and Floo powder (which she had none of, not to mention there were no fireplaces in sight). She could send an owl—if she only had an owl. Would any owl do, or did it need to be a special owl, a magical owl? In her trunk was a bag filled with golden and silver coins, but she didn't think it would do her much good in the Muggle world. The big clock above the train departure times ticked closer and closer to her train's departure every moment.

She was _doomed_ —

"Alright there, Potter?"

Harriet thought she would have recognized that drawling, arrogant voice anywhere. While in other circumstances she might have been wary to run into Draco, she found that the sight of him— _anyone_ magical really—immediately soothed the fears in her stomach and helped her breaths come easier.

"Draco—hello," said Harriet, hoping her voice didn't sound as high and frightened to his ears as it did to her own. Behind him stood a tall woman and even taller man, and she didn't have the slightest doubt that they were Draco's parents. Dressed in silk robes of coordinating emerald and blue, they both had looks of practiced disinterest but politeness, their long, fair hair glinting impressively even under the harsh lightening of the station.

"Draco," the man said, placing a hand on his son's shoulder. He turned his pale eyes to Harriet, keeping their gazes locked together as if there wasn't something just a few inches higher hidden under a mass of dark bangs that called for his attention more. "Introduce us, son. Where are your manners?"

Coloring slightly, Draco turned to gesture back and forth. "Harriet, this is my mother and father. Mother, Father, this is Harriet Potter. We met a few weeks ago at Madam Malkin's while we were both being fitted for our Hogwarts robes."

While Draco spoke, Mr. Malfoy nudged his son aside and edged closer to her. Now that her name had been stated, he was not as polite. His eyes lingered on Harriet's forehead like the secret to life itself might be scarred there and just in very fine print. The sight of him made her feel stricken and—angry, though she couldn't say why. Plenty of people looked at her scar these days, he was no worse than any of them. His wife smiled ever-so-slightly, tipping her head in acknowledgement.

"It's nice to meet you," said Harriet, not sure yet whether it was really nice or not to meet them. Mrs. Malfoy with her long, beautiful hair and well-manicured hands made Harriet feel very much like some sort of decaying fish in comparison.

"A pleasure," Mrs. Malfoy said, her voice lower and more soothing than Harriet had expected. "Were you just entering the Platform, dear?"

"After Draco," Harriet replied, hoping it came out sounding more polite than it did desperate. Draco's mother kneeled to embrace him causing his face to redden. His father offered him nothing but a cool nod, still looking at Harriet from head to toe and glancing over the effects of her trunk. She felt like something particularly hideous under a Muggle microscope. She tried not to glare back openly.

After the goodbyes, Harriet watched with rapt attention as Draco pushed his cart towards the separation between platforms nine and ten. Eyes wide, she waited for him to crash into the solid brick wall (she imagined there would be school books, white blond hairs, and quills flying every which way at his collision) but he went through the wall.

Of course. Why did she have a feeling that she already knew that? Heart hammering, Harriet gave a final nod to the Malfoys before turning and mimicking Draco as if that's what she had planned to do all along. Surely she would crash into the wall, perhaps break a bone and make a fool out of herself in front of this pureblood family—but she went through the wall too.

For a moment after both of the children had gone, Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy looked at each other, the former with a smirk and the latter with a single raised eyebrow.

"That was the girl who lived," Mr. Malfoy sneered.

"Was _that_ all?" His wife asked.

#

Passing through the brick wall was the strangest feeling—well, it didn't feel like there was a wall there at all, to be most accurate. She had squeezed her eyes shut, knuckles white with the strength she used to on to her cart, and when she opened them it was as if she had entered a new world. A glistening scarlet train was idling on the tracks, smoke billowing from its engine and trailing faintly overhead of the station's many occupants. Everywhere she looked were children and families embracing, trunks piled high with strangely shaped packages, and cats winding in between legs.

Draco was waiting for her. He was talking to a boy, tall and thickset who had a muted, dumb look on his face. At the sight of her, Draco waved a hand to shut the other boy up and motioned for her to come over to him. Now that she had made it to the station in time, Harriet found that the sight of the youngest Malfoy made her more nervous than it did anything else.

"Sit with us, I'm sure we can find an empty compartment," Draco said, his smug smile saying that he would _empty_ a compartment if he needed to. "Goyle will carry our trunks."

"Oh, err, that's alright, I can carry my own trunk—"

Draco stared at her, blankly. "Suit yourself."

There were no empty compartments, but there was a compartment taken up by an even squatter and fatter boy who looked just as dense as the other. He scooted closer to the window to make room for them as Goyle started heaving their trunks up above their heads. Harriet was contented with making herself as small as possible in the corner with her trunk, Bast in a cage on her knees, racking her mind for a way to avoid spending the entire train ride to Hogwarts stuck with the three boys.

"I sit by Potter," Draco said, shoving at Goyle's shoulder when he tried sitting in the seat next to Harriet. She gave him a weak, relieved smile. As confused as she was about Draco, she at least knew him somewhat. Were Crabbe and Goyle anything like Dudley and his friends? They certainly looked large and strong enough to hold her arms behind her back while one or the other pounded her face in.

So Harriet reverted to what she knew best: keeping very still, very quiet, and pretending as if she didn't exist. Draco seemed content to talk at her, requiring minimal answers and giving pleased smirks whenever she nodded.

"Mother and Father wouldn't let me smuggle my broom in—they said it was too expensive just to have it confiscated, but I told them that since I'm practically _destined_ for Slytherin, there's no _way_ I could be so thick as to—"

It wasn't as if Harriet didn't like people, it was just that she hadn't met a lot of them worth liking. Not many of them had been kind to her (the majority of those kind people being perfect strangers, Mr. Prince, or Miss Figg). Those who hadn't been kind to her were often very unkind. Harriet was reminded of the time Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had locked her in her cupboard for three days after she trampled mud onto the carpet. They'd given her no food and had only let her out once she threatened to use the bathroom under there. Her face burned at the memory.

But worse than people in general were _men_ , who could make Harriet particularly nervous. While Aunt Petunia had a forte for cruelty and insults, Uncle Vernon and Dudley always specialized in violence whether it was throttling her or giving her sharp smacks upside her head. They were larger than her (though most everyone was), they had no patience for her, and they wanted to _hurt_ her. She had met a few men who had—so far—proven to be exceptions: Mr. Prince, Professor Dumbledore, Hagrid, but she had only known these people for a few months. Who knew the kind of men they could turn into in time?

Suddenly, Harriet's savior appeared in the form of a short, bushy-haired girl with front teeth just a little too large for her face. She had thrown open the compartment door and was scanning their faces and then the floors.

"Have any of you seen a toad? Neville's lost one."

"I'll help you look," Harriet said standing so quickly that Bast yowled angrily in her cage. She looked to the girl. "Do you think it's alright that I let her out?"

The girl watched with wide, pleased eyes, like she hadn't intended anyone to offer their services but that it was a most fortunate turn of events. She gave the cat a searching, wary glance. "Does it eat toads?"

"She eats cat food."

The girl looked as if this didn't necessarily answer the question but that she would accept it anyway. She held out a hand. "Hermione Granger. First year."

"Harriet Potter."

"Are you really?" said Hermione. "I know all about you, of course—I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."

"That's—err," Harriet was unsure how to finish the sentence, so she allowed it to fizzle out on its own. "This is Draco Malfoy and—"

"Vincent Crabbe," the shorter and stouter boy supplied.

Goyle kept staring out the window at the passing countryside as if he hadn't heard them.

"A mudblood," Draco muttered, crossing his arms over his narrow chest and turned to mimic Goyle's distant, disgusted stance.

Hermione stared, brow furrowed. The two girls shared a confused glance. Clearly neither of them new what such a word meant precisely, but judging by Draco's impressive sneer, it was not a compliment.

"I'm just going to go," Harriet said a tad awkwardly.

"That's—fine," he jerked out, looking as if it was anything _but_ fine. "Hopefully you are sorted into Slytherin. Then we will be seeing more of each other."

"Yes," she replied, because she couldn't think of anything else to say. She opened Bast's cage and the cat streaked out, rubbing against Harriet's legs, purring heavily. Reaching into her trunk, she found her robes and tugged them on over her head. Then the two girls slipped through the compartment, shutting it firmly behind them. They didn't say anything until they thought they were a safe distance away.

"Sorry," said Harriet. "I just didn't fancy sitting the whole ride with them."

"I don't blame you. They didn't seem to be the friendliest sort, did they? Do you really want to help me find Trevor?"

"Trevor? I thought we were looking for a toad."

"Trevor _is_ the toad."

"Of course I'll help—it's the least I can do."

So they walked up and down the train popping their heads into various compartments, asking if anyone had found a particularly mischievous yet lethargic toad. Neville appeared every now and then, a nervous looking boy who wrung his hands and talked about how his grandmother would never forgive him if he lost his toad 'for good this time.' Harriet and Hermione tried to console him as best as they could, but they had almost gone through the entire train and still found no sign of him.

Towards the back of the train was a compartment entirely empty except for a tall, red-haired boy seated next to a dry-looking sandwich wrapped in cellophane. He seemed embarrassed at the sight of them, tucking the sandwich away into the shabby pair of robes he was wearing which seemed a size or two too short for him.

On his lap was a weathered, gray rat sniffing morosely at the boy's fingers and the crumbs on his robes. At it he was pointing a wand which almost looked as old as the rat itself. Mouth opened to ask about Trevor, Hermione seemed as frozen as Harriet by the sight of the wand.

"Are you doing magic? Let's see it, then." She sat down. The boy looked taken aback. Harriet watched warily from hallway but when two pretty east-Indian twins went to squeeze by, she ducked into the compartment to give them room.

Face becoming as red as his hair, he cleared his throat. "Alright then. Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow." He waved his wand but nothing happened. The rat didn't even flinch.

"Are you sure that's a real spell?" Hermione asked. "Well, it's not a very good one, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard—I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough. I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, and you are?" She said all of this very fast.

Harriet looked at Ron and was relieved to see by his face that he looked just as stunned as she felt. It also made sense now that Draco had called Hermione that foul name—she came from a Muggle family. Dumbledore had said that the Malfoys believed in 'pure blood.' Harriet wondered if _he_ had memorized the course books.

"Ron Weasley," muttered Ron.

"Oh!" Cried Hermione, pressing a hand to her forehead as if she had just remembered. "I've completely forgotten. We're looking for a toad—have you seen one?"

"No," Ron replied. "Only a rat."

A streak of black scrambled into the apartment and dove onto Ron's lap at the very mention of the word. Startled, Ron ended up dumping his rat into the floor where it proceeded to cower in the corner of the compartment.

"Bast!" Harriet grabbed the cat firmly by the scruff of its neck. It yowled, twisting its body every which way so that she had to hold it firmly against her chest to keep it from getting loose. She ended up with several scratches on her skinny wrists. "I am so sorry—I've only had her for a few weeks, I didn't know she would act like that."

Ron scowled, fetching his rat from its hiding place. "Yeah," he muttered, stroking the shaking animal. "Keep better hold of it, will you? Scabbers has been in the family for almost a decade."

"I really am sorry."

"You said that," Ron replied. Hermione crossed her arms.

"Harriet couldn't help it—"

Ron's eyes went wide. "Harriet? Are you—? Of course you are! Can't believe I didn't see it before. You're Harriet Potter!"

"That's me," Harriet said, relieved that Ron seemed to have forgotten his rat and Bast's existence.

"Do you really have a scar?" He asked in a hushed voice. Hermione seemed to wonder the same thing suddenly, and both of them examined her forehead, eyes narrowed as if they could see straight through her hair if they tried hard enough. Sighing, she pushed up her bangs.

"Wicked," Ron said. "Do you want to take a seat?"

"We were looking for Neville's toad," Hermione reminded them, frowning.

"We're almost to the castle now—if you haven't found it by now, you probably won't."

Lips pinched together as if this answer didn't satisfy her at all, they grudgingly took a seat together across from Ron who had yet to take his eyes off of Harriet. They spent the remainder of the train ride discussing their families: Hermione was an only child and both of her parents were dentists (the word confused Ron very much). Ron had a huge family—five older brothers, three of which were attending Hogwarts with him, and a younger sister who had cried and threw a spectacular fit when she wasn't allowed to go along too. When the time came for Harriet to talk about her family, she stammered to tell them a very tame version of what life had been like with the Durlseys, leaving out any mention of cupboards.

They talked for a while watching the sky darken to a deep purple. She could see mountains and forests moving by, and the train seemed to be slowing. At the mention of it, Hermione ducked from the compartment to go and put on her Hogwarts robes and Harriet decided it would be best to take Bast back to her cage.

Carrying the cat to be sure she didn't get into any trouble, Harriet made her way back towards the compartment Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle had been in. Glancing in, she saw that they had another occupant who had been speaking avidly to Draco: a hard-faced girl with dark hair. At the sight of her, the girl snorted and crossed her arms.

"Did you find the toad?" Draco asked sounding as if he couldn't have cared less.

"No, it seems to be gone. The train is slowing down so I came back to put Bast in her cage." She had to turn sideways and move past the scowling girl to make it to her trunk and cat carrier. Harriet could feel the angry stare of the girl like a heat on the back of her neck. She wasted no time in pushing out into the hall. If she was lucky, perhaps she could catch up with Hermione and Ron before they got off the train.

#

Severus watched from a window as the boats crossed the Black Lake. From this distance, they were only dim lights glistening off the water. He could remember his own turn crossing on those boats, could almost feel the press of ivy on his face as they passed into the tunnel that would lead them under the castle. That first sight of Hogwarts would have taken his breath away if it hadn't already been stolen by the beautiful redhead who had been sharing his boat.

And now, somewhere on one of those boats was Lily's daughter. He had managed to spend the rest of the summer avoiding the sight of her but he had been unable to avoid hearing about her. The more professors that arrived and lingered in the staff room the more the girl ended up frequenting as the topic of every conversation.

"Best get used to it," he muttered to himself.

"What was that, Severus?" The Headmaster asked, slipping from the shadows to stand next to him. "Were you speaking to me?"

"If I had been," Severus said. "You would have known as such."

"My hearing isn't quite what it used to be," the Albus said gently, though Severus knew that the old man could see and hear as well now as he had when he was decades younger. "Ah, the boats. This summer has certainly flown by. I've not had a summer pass so quickly since I was in my youth—I'd always found that time would fly when I least desired it to."

"I am, for once, inclined to agree with you. Minimal contact with children—" it took effort to keep from snarling the word, "—no hope crushing assignments to grade, no ridiculous detentions to supervise. I had hoped it might last forever."

"Severus, I always thought you _enjoyed_ crushing the children's hopes with your assignments."

"Yes," he drawled. "But they crush _mine_ with their mindless answers."

Albus chuckled openly, watching the lights on the lake disappear by ones and twos into the tunnel and out of sight.

"The older students are being seated and the others will be here any moment. Shall we take our places at the table?"

"If we must."

#

The entrance of the First Year students was preceded by a rush of ghosts through the far wall. There was the Fat Friar, barely more tolerable than Nearly-Headless Nick who Severus found he could stand only in doses as small and infrequent as physically possible. The pearly, see-through ghosts glistened in the candlelight and they flocked about the room, greeting old students and settling in to watch the sorting. Then the doors opened and McGonagall was there leading the way. The children followed her like sheep, heads tilted up in awe at the sight of the ceiling. It took no effort to find Potter: she was near the front, gaping like the rest.

In the large open space between the House tables and the staff table, McGonagall and the current Head Boy and Head Girl began dividing the children up and placing them in neat rows wide enough to walk through. Severus had to admit that the Sorting was one of the only tolerable parts of the feast—he had been endlessly interested in the Sorting Statues during his own school years, and the intrigue had followed him after all these years.

At last, McGonagall raised a hand and silence fell across the hall.

"In a few moments, you will be sorted into your respective houses. Please refrain from leaving your spot, and answer any questions you are asked _as honestly as possible_. Are there any questions?" Naturally, there were none—at least, there was no First Year brave enough to raise their bloody hand.

McGonagall rolled up the sleeves on her robes. She turned to face the staff table and waved her wand, speaking a few Latin words loudly and clearly. There was a moment of hushed silence before a loud sound emanated through the hall: the sound of stone on stone, what an earthquake might have sounded like moments before it occurred.

The four statues of Hogwarts Founders that rested behind the staff table were coming to life, stone rippling as they staggered from their places, stretching their arms and legs as if they hadn't moved in many months, joints crackling. The students looked paralyzed, watching the statues make their way around the staff table and begin to peruse in between the lines of children.

"You, dear," the statue of Helga Hufflepuff called out to a trembling red-head near the front of the lines. "Given the choice, would you rather invent a potion that would guarantee glory, wisdom, love, or power?"

The girl replied too quietly for the others to hear.

"Speak up my dear, no need to be afraid—"

"I said love, ma'am."

Helga beamed and leaned closer to ask the girl another question that Severus couldn't hear and didn't care to hear.

Behind her, Rowena had stopped by the bushy-haired girl standing next to Harriet.

"What kind of magic are you most eager to learn at Hogwarts?" The woman asked, her voice low and soothing. The child looked nearly ready to faint at the question.

"Oh I couldn't begin to decide," she said. "Charms sounds so useful, but Transfiguring is truly fascinating, isn't it? Oh and I read that sometimes the Seventh Year students are offered Alchemy which sounds terribly exciting."

Severus snorted. The girl was clearly a Ravenclaw in the making.

"Not afraid to speak out, are you little one?" A man joined her, his stone facial hair rippling. "Courage is a Gryffindor quality, there's no doubt about it Rowena—"

"—but her thirst for knowledge, that cannot be overlooked," the statue of Ravenclaw replied. The two of them pulled away and leaned their heads together, discussing and gesturing. The girl being sorted watched, unsure, glancing from one to the other and beginning to wring her hands with nervousness. Such friendly discussions between the statues over the sorting of a particular student were common enough. Occasionally they looked to her to ask questions, but the answers only seemed to make them discuss more fervently.

Severus watched as the statue of Salazar walked right past Miss Potter, barely glancing at her. He continued, stopping to speak to a calm looking black boy. Suddenly, he called out: "SLYTHERIN!" and the hall cheered politely except for the Slytherin table which burst into enthusiastic applause, welcoming their first new student. Severus clapped out of duty.

"HUFFLEPUFF!" The short statue shouted from the front, warmly shaking hands with the red-headed girl who beamed.

Rowena and Godric were still in a tense discussion over the placement of the bushy-haired girl, but finally seemed to come to a decision.

"GRYFFINDOR!" He cried out triumphantly. The Ravenclaw statue inclined her head to the girl, smiling faintly before moving on. The girl quickly made her way to the table across the hall that had burst into applause at Godric's shout. Severus tapped his fingers impatiently next to his plate, watching as Salazar went to his godson. They began a conversation that seemed shortest of all.

"SLYTHERIN!"

But had there truly been any doubt?

Slowly, student after student was sent to his or her respective House and the lines in front of the staff table were growing smaller and smaller. Severus could feel the tension in the hall grow as statue after statue passed the Potter girl's place. Godric called for Helga to consult about a terrified looking boy clutching a toad, but who was ultimately sorted into Gryffindor. It seemed to Severus that Gryffindor would allow just anyone in these days, but then again, the House had always had shoddy standards.

Suddenly, there was a statue standing in front of _her_.

Salazar Slytherin.

Severus strained to listen to their quiet voices, and the rest of the hall was doing the same until it was almost eerily quiet.

"Hello," Salazar said quietly.

"Hello," the girl replied.

"After you have died, what would you most like people to do when they hear your name?" He asked.

The girl looked away, mouth quirking as she chewed at the skin inside her cheek. Had Lily ever had that nervous habit? Severus couldn't remember it being so.

"I just want to be remembered _now_ ," Harriet said. "After I'm dead, it won't matter anymore, will it?"

That was a typical Slytherin answer. For the first time, Severus toyed with the idea of a _Slytherin_ Potter. His own house. Potter would surely roll over in his grave. Salazar hummed, stroking at his facial hair. "Which would you rather be: trusted, liked, imitated, praised, envied, or feared?"

"Praised," the girl breathed, though the answer made her look down at her shoes.

"I can see into your mind and your heart. You have cunning, and the need to prove yourself. A life of inadequacy can instill such things—and Slytherin house can help you achieve your goals."

A stone hand came down on Salazar's shoulder. "Not so fast there. I'm not sure if you are looking closely enough," the statue looked past him into the girl's eyes. "Tell me, girl. River, or forest?"

"Forest," she said.

"Dawn or dusk?"

"Dawn."

Godric glanced at Salazar and gave a stony smirk that made Severus seeth.

"Answered like a true Gryffindor, hasn't she Salazar?" He turned to the girl. "You have an impressive loyalty to those who have hurt you, and a fiercer loyalty to those who would protect you. Not to mention the courage it takes to face adversity head-on. You would be suited well for Gryffindor house."

"Courage is for the weak of mind," Salazar said. "With cunning, one does not need to face adversity head-on."

Their voices seemed to grow louder and louder as the two men turned to face each other and almost ignore the girl. In the back, another student was sorted into Ravenclaw, but nearly no one clapped, as everyone was watching the growing tension between the two male statues in front of the Lily's daughter. The more Salazar and Godric argued, the more their robes and hair seemed to be rippled by an invisible wind.

"There _is_ loyalty in Slytherin house," Salazar said furiously.

"Loyalty to _oneself_ hardly counts."

"A lack of loyalty to oneself is suicidal—foolish, though I hardly would expect different from—"

"To be housed in Slytherin would be detrimental—there are those in your house who would manipulate her for their own—"

"Gryffindor has housed one of the _kings_ of manipulation!" Salazar hissed, pointing a furious finger towards the staff table and the old wizard seated in the middle.

The hall gaped, and even Severus blinked in shock. It would only go downhill from there.

Albus stood, circling round the table and down the steps with surprising sprightliness towards where the statues were arguing. In all his years of sorting, Severus had never seen such a vehement argument break out between two of the statues, though the sorting of 1986 had held several snide comments from Salazar that had him snorting in derisive enjoyment.

Godric drew his wand. " _Now_ you want to critique manipulation when it is practically your house's signature?"

"Now you would have me _defend_ it because it has been exemplified in one of your own?" Salazar waved his hand and Godric was thrown to the floor where he crunched against the cobblestone. He retaliated, shooting off a spell that couldn't be seen but ejected Slytherin into the air.

"Stop this!" The Headmaster's wand at his throat amplified his voice. With a wave of his wand, the statues were frozen from the neck down. Rowena and Helga came forward to tug their two counterparts back to Potter who had taken a handful of hasty steps backwards at their fight. They left deep grooves in the cobblestone floor.

"You know how to solve this," Salazar said coldly. At those words, both statues and the rest of the hall turned their eyes to her. "Girl, it shall be your choice."

The whole hall was watching her, hundreds of students, all of the staff. The girl looked like she might be ill, face paler than he'd ever seen. He felt pity for her, but leaned in to hear her answer.

"Gryffindor," she whispered. "I choose Gryffindor."

"GRYFFINDOR!" Godric shouted. Severus couldn't help but feel the slightest twinge of disappointment. He watched as the girl smiled and started towards the Gryffindor table, the students of which seemed to be having apoplectic fits of joy.

Severus scowled. But really, had there been any doubt? Both Lily and Potter had been sorted into Gryffindor. It made sense that the girl would be as well. He ignored the burning, acidic feeling in his chest and watched the rest of the sorting with more disinterest than ever.

As the last few names were sorted, the girl caught his eye—because _she_ was looking at _him_ as well. The moment he turned his eyes to her, her face blazed red and she turned back to a bushy-haired girl sitting next to her, but it had been long enough for him to read the emotions on her childish face: the smallest hint of disappointment drowned out by relief.

Relief she hadn't been sorted into his house.

"Fucking Gryffindors," he muttered as the Headmaster stood to give his most ridiculous Welcoming Speech ever—but thank the gods they didn't have to sing the bloody school song. Severus surely would have tried to kill himself with the cutlery.

The feast appeared which nearly distracted him from his misery, but then that blithering fool Quirrell lured him into a conversation that Severus did his best to maintain only with single-syllabic answers given through gritted teeth.

As if drawn by some invisible force, he looked past that turban-headed clown and met eyes with Miss Potter again. Why was the bloody girl staring at him so much? (No more than you're staring at her, a voice in his mind whispered) Her face twisted into a pained expression, eyes screwing shut and hand scrambling to clap against her forehead. Alarmed, Severus ignored Quirrell entirely and pushed himself away from the table as if to stand—but the girl was already peeking through her fingers, frowning and rubbing at her scar.

He looked sharply down the table at Albus, who was busy sampling a jam doughnut. By the time he had looked back to the girl, she was busy talking with the older Weasley boy, looking no more sickly than usual. Severus turned his eyes back to his plate and kept them there for the rest of the feast, ignoring attempts at conversation and contemplating what he had seen.

And when Albus tried to rouse them all into the school song, he tossed his napkin into his plate and took his leave. The Slytherin prefects would show the First Years to their dorms, but Severus found it appropriate to be waiting in his office for when things went wrong—because things _always_ went wrong.

#

It was midnight. After stopping by the Slytherin common room to make sure none of his students were taking advantage of the 'clean slate' afforded by the new term—as if there really was such a thing—Severus found himself in the Headmaster's Office. He wasn't sure if Albus would be awake, but the fire in the grate still burned and the old wizard was writing in a large, leather bound book when the gargoyle gave Severus entrance.

"Severus, my boy, it is late. Don't you have classes to teach early this morning?"

"Unfortunately," Severus drawled choosing to sit in the chair by the fire. The cool air of the dungeons had not yet begun to bother him because of his age, but he found himself to be particularly chilled this night.

"You are troubled," Albus said, the scratching of his quill pausing for a moment while the man looked up.

"I am always troubled," he replied.

"More so than usual." There were a few minutes of silence where the younger man could not disagree. Albus, good at knowing when to push and when to pull back, continued to write.

"I witnessed something strange at the feast," he said at last.

Albus put down his quill, folded his hands together, and waited.

"The girl—she looked at me and seemed to be stricken by pain. Pain in her scar."

"All of the sudden?" The Headmaster asked.

"All of the sudden."

"And you're sure it was you she was looking at?"

"Of course," Severus hissed. "We met eyes."

And why for the loved of all the gods had he gone and said _that_? Scowling, he reached up to rub at his temples. It wasn't even the first day of term and he had a migraine—but had he truly expected different?

"Old scars can cause phantom pains, Severus. Surely that is something both of us know too well."

Severus snorted, shaking his head. "One would sooner believe I'm related to the Fat Friar than Harriet Potter's scar is hurting for innocuous reasons."

"What would you have me do?" Albus asked calmly, allowing Severus's cantankerous attitude to slide off of him like water off a duck.

The Potions Master stood. "Watch her."

"And what will you do, Severus?"

"I'll watch her _even more closely_."

Even when the door had closed behind the younger man, Albus remained staring at it. After a long while, his eyes moved to the fire, where they remained even longer. He thought long into the night before retiring to his rooms, looking as old as his hundred ten years and even older still.

* * *

 **There's the end of all the new content I have for you guys right now. The next chapter is in the works. I hope that you all have enjoyed what I have so far and that you'll review and give me some feedback. The sorting statues idea came from JK herself who toyed with the notion before deciding on the sorting hat.**

 **Thoughts?**


	5. Hogwarts Tradition

**See you at the end.**

* * *

Hogwarts Traditions

Harriet belonged somewhere. She really, well and truly did.

It hadn't sunk in on her way to the seventh floor of Hogwarts to Gryffindor's Common Room. It hadn't pierced her mind even when she, Hermione, and the other First Year Gryffindor girls went up the spiral staircase to their dorm room and picked out their beds (Harriet was fortunate enough to receive one of the beds by the wall, as her trunk had already been placed there and no other girl seemed to want it anyway).

It didn't truly sink in until the next morning when she opened her trunk and found that all of her plain robes—the ones with the blank insignias—had changed to show the seal of Gryffindor. Her plain ties and socks had become trimmed with gold and red. The other girls' clothes had done the same. Now, wherever she went, anyone would be able to see that she was a Gryffindor.

She had awoken early to write Mr. Prince a letter and tell him that she had been placed in Gryffindor. The more she wrote to him, the more foolish she felt—she had sent at least a half-dozen letters, and he'd never written back, nor had he come to visit her. Did he find all of her letters terribly annoying? She tried to be as adult and concise as possible, but she found herself making her letters longer and longer with the hopes of including a detail that might entice him from his silence. So far, she had been unsuccessful.

"Harriet, are you ready? Breakfast starts in ten minutes, and I don't quite remember how to get to the Great Hall, but there are some Seventh Year students downstairs who offered to show First Years the way—"

"One moment." Harriet pulled the hairbrush Hermione had allowed her to borrow through her hair one last time. The two of them bounded down the stairs only to find the Gryffindor Common Room a flurry of activity—but it didn't look as if there were any Seventh Year students around.

"Oh no," Hermione groaned. "Look—they've gone and left us. Now how will we get there on time?"

Harriet thought to tell Hermione that she had spent the last half of her summer in the castle and could find her way well enough, but a student staying at school over the summer didn't seem normal and Harriet didn't want to answer any questions that might make the other girl look at her differently.

"Wait—my copy of _Hogwarts, A History_ has an unfolding map in the back. Let me just run and grab it, and maybe we can use that." The girl disappeared out of sight back up the stairs.

Suddenly, there was a hand on each of her shoulders.

"Oi," said a voice in her ear. "Couldn't help but overhear—"

"—that _you_ are a bit lost."

Startled, she turned to see a set of red-headed twins who looked to be a few years above her.

"Would you happen to be Fred and George?"

"Do you hear that, Fred? The little lady already knows us," one twin said. "There goes all the marvelous introductions that we rehearsed in the dormitory."

"Another day, George, plenty of unknowing First Years."

"I met your brother on the train," Harriet said.

"Oh but _which_ brother?" Fred asked.

"Yes, was he clutching a grubby old rat—"

"Or was he giving off an air of pretension so heady that they might bottle it and give it to the Minister of Magic to wear like a cologne?"

"Scabbers is _not_ grubby," Ron said, appearing beside Harriet. He scowled darkly at his brothers and Harriet frowned. Ron was so lucky to have such a large family. Having brothers and a sister must have been amazing, even if they teased and bickered. The closest thing Harriet had was Dudley, who did plenty of teasing but had never offered her any sibling-like kindness. "My brothers are Third Years. They were going to walk me to the Great Hall. Did you want to come along?"

"Of course," Harriet said. "Can we wait a moment for Hermione, though? She just ran up to grab a book."

Ron looked crestfallen. "Her? Yeah, I guess so."

Hermione appeared at that moment, clutching a massively thick book in her hands. She seemed a little put out that she wouldn't need to use her map to get to the Great Hall, but Harriet assured her that it would more than likely come in handy sometime during the day and the girl perked up.

Fred and George led the way, telling Harriet and Hermione about all the mayhem they had caused in their time at Hogwarts. Hermione gasped appropriately, looking horrified when the twins told her about setting a half dozen of the tapestries on the third floor on fire in their first year.

"Only got two weeks' worth detentions for that one, though Professor Dumbledore did write home to mum who wasn't happy at all. We've already got our names on Filch's list, and we're only in our Third Year—"

"Imagine the things we'll be doing in our _final_ year," Fred finished, winking at the two of them. The five of them made it into the Great Hall a few minutes after the tables had filled with breakfast foods. Harriet was too nervous to eat, thinking of all the classes she had to take that day. She sipped from a glass of orange juice instead.

After Fred and George went to sit next to their friend, Lee Jordan, Ron's mood seemed to improve. He helped himself to several servings of eggs and sausage and even helped to unfold the massive map in the back of _Hogwarts, A History._

"The Transfiguration classroom is on the ground floor…oh, but look, Charms is on the fourth floor. How are we to make it in just fifteen minutes time on our first day? Do you think they'll dock points if we're late?"

"We don't have any points to dock," Harriet said.

"Can points be in the negative?" Both of them turned to Ron, who (with his mouth full) just shrugged.

"Well, then we had best arrive early to every class to be safe," said Hermione. She took a bite from her toast and then sat it aside, brushing away crumbs. The three of them stood and began making their way to the Transfiguration classroom, which took a bit of work as all three of them had to help hold open the map.

Harriet, feeling both guilty and foolish, played along while trying to guide them in the least ostentatious way possible: 'I think that staircase is the one that leads to the second floor Defense Against the Dark Arts office. At least, that's what the map says…' and 'I think we should avoid that step there, see how there's a little star next to it on the map?'

Magical school was very, very different. Only in a magical school would you encounter such notices in the hallways as 'Transfiguration Classroom. Treat inanimate objects respectfully. They may be your classmates,' and Harriet had never heard of any Muggle school keeping their students out of bed to look at the midnight stars for an Astronomy class. She took heaps of notes (though Hermione's notes always seemed to be more detailed) and loved the practical exercises most of all. It seemed as if classes were going to be everything she had hoped—

Until Potion's class.

As it was, First Year Gryffindors had Potion's class with First Year Slytherins. There were four such classes, which gave Harriet hope that perhaps Draco (who had been sorted into Slytherin) would be in another class. As soon as Harriet, Hermione, and Ron made it into the dungeon's hallway, Harriet's hopes sank: Draco's blond hair was impossible to miss.

"Potter," Draco called, gesturing for her to come over. Behind her, Ron snorted. It was only the first week of September, but Ron and Draco already had bad blood. The three of them had ran into each other while waiting for the Sorting. The boys had exchanged some foul comments, and it was clear that they wouldn't be burying the hatchet anytime soon.

"Hello Draco," said Harriet coolly. She glanced past him towards the classroom door but it was firmly shut and there was no sign of Professor Snape. Harriet hadn't seen much of him since the Welcome Feast, but she'd heard the terrible stories that came from his classroom: Fred and George swore that Snape had added a pickled First Year in a barrel behind his desk to his collection of pickled animal parts. He was notorious for his foul mood and cruel ways to any students who weren't from his own House. Harriet had seen Professor Snape's surly attitude at Privet Drive and in the Great Hall, but he had never been unkind to her. She had been looking forward to Potion's since her first day of classes.

"I called your name in the Great Hall yesterday morning, didn't you hear?"

Harriet _had_ heard.

"I was walking with Ron and Hermione—we had History of Magic."

Draco pulled her away from the other students. Ron made a noise like he was about to protest but Harriet gave a thin smile and waved to let him know she was alright.

"Listen, Potter—" He paused and lowered his voice to a whisper, giving a glance to make sure no one was listening in. Crabbe and Goyle were standing guard, so no one had even tried. "— _Harriet_. I'm sorry about the things I said before the feast and on the train. About Weasley and Granger. It wasn't very polite of me."

Harriet stared at him suspiciously. "You're sorry?"

"That's what I'm saying," Draco replied, sounding patient, like he had expected her disbelief.

"And what's changed your mind, then?"

He looked stricken. "What does it matter? My mind changed."

"Then why didn't you apologize to Ron and Hermione instead of me?"

"You—you want me to apologize to _them_?" Draco looked like he'd rather be the student in Snape's pickling barrel than admit to Ron and Hermione that he was sorry. "Look, I'll make more of an effort to be _nice_ , but _apologizing_?"

Behind them, the Potion's classroom door flew open of its own accord. Inside, only darkness was visible. The two of them looked at each other and gulped. Around them, the various conversations of the other students died out. "Maybe some other time."

#

The inside of the Potion's classroom was dim and faintly dank. The air was chilled and had an unused smell, as if the room had been sealed up all summer and only just opened. Their way lit by sparse candlelight, the class shuffled in and took their seats at desks of two scattered neatly around the room, Harriet and Hermione together with Ron and Neville in the seats behind. Along the walls were glass jars filled with strangely colored liquids and unnamable masses of tissue.

And by Snape's desk…

Hermione took in a sharp breath, nudging Harriet with her elbow.

Was that—a _barrel_?

Seated behind the desk was the imposing Potions Master himself. His thin arms were crossed over his chest as he cast his dispassionate gaze around the room, fixing each of them with a look that was impossible to scrutinize. When he made it around the room to Harriet, her heart jumped into her throat. She tried to give him a faint smile but his eyes had already moved on, so she frowned instead. Had he even recognized her?

But throughout the lesson it became clear that he had recognized her but just hadn't cared to acknowledge her. He was remarkably cruel when it came to the other students, critiquing the first potions they'd ever made just as harshly as he might have any Seventh Year's potion, but when he made it around the room to Harriet's cauldron (which she knew was the wrong color and consistency for the potion they were supposed to be making), he pretended as if there was no student seated by Hermione at all.

What had she expected—a handshake? No, but was it so wrong to have expected _something_? On her way to her next class with Hermione and Ron after class, Harriet was noticeably quiet and sullen.

"Cheer up," Ron said. "Your boils cure was probably loads better than Neville's—his looked a bit like a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans left out in the sun to melt."

Harriet gave a weak smile. "Thanks Ron."

Perhaps stranger to Harriet than her first Potion's lesson was her first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. Behind Potions and Flying Lessons (which Harriet was schedule to have with Slytherin the next day), she had been most eager for Defense classes as it sounded dead useful and most fascinating.

The Defense classroom was similar to Potions with its dim lighting, but the whole room was better decorated and warmer, even if it did smell strongly of garlic. Professor Quirrell was just as frightened and prone to stuttering (perhaps more so) as Harriet remembered from their brief meeting in Diagon Alley. As it was, Harriet couldn't remember much of Professor Quirrell's lesson as she was overcome with a horrific headache centering just behind her forehead as soon as she entered his classroom. The pain sent sharp pricks through her scar that left her eyes watering.

It seemed that Professor Quirrell wasn't feeling well either, as he ended the class nearly fifteen minutes early.

"It must be the garlic," Hermione said, watching Harriet massage her forehead. "Sometimes, very strong smells can give people headaches. I had an uncle who used to smoke cigarettes. Every time we went to visit, I'd get the most terrible migraines."

"That must be it. It's getting better now, anyway."

There was still a slot of time before dinner, so the three made the trek back up to Gryffindor tower, where Harriet added a quick post-script to Mr. Prince about her first day of classes. Once finished, she decided that a quick walk to the Headmaster's Office might do her good.

"Should we meet in the Great Hall for dinner?" Harriet asked her two friends. They had been sitting in the Gryffindor Common Room (a room with a roaring fire and plenty of large, cushy armchairs in scarlet) starting on their History of Magic homework. Hermione looked close to cursing Ron, who did not seem to care at all about the European Wizard Council.

Hermione frowned at Harriet. "Where are you going?"

"To see Professor Dumbledore—I have a letter for…my aunt and uncle. Only they don't care to receive owls, so he sends it through the Muggle post for me." Hermione seemed to believe this, which made Harriet feel twice as terrible for the lie.

It wasn't until she had made it all the way to the Headmaster's Office that she realized she didn't whether the password had changed or not; thankfully, it hadn't. Harriet gave a knock on the door and waited politely to be allowed in.

The Headmaster didn't seem at all surprised to see her. He was sporting robes of soft blue that made his eyes stand out even more behind their half-moon spectacles. The end of his beard rested on his desk and it seemed as if he had been braiding it before she entered the room.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Professor," Harriet said, digging her letter out from inside of her robes. "But I have another letter to Mr. Prince."

"Ah, no bother at all, Harriet. No bother at all. How is your first week of classes going?"

"Amazing. Better than I ever hoped."

Dumbledore smiled gently. "That makes an old man very happy to hear. My dear, are you feeling quite well?"

Harriet had been rubbing at her forehead subconsciously. "Yes sir, I got a headache during Professor Quirrell's class. It smells quite strongly of garlic in his classroom and it's made me a little ill."

He listened to her raptly and leaned forehead to glance at her from head to toe. "Is it your scar that hurts, specifically?"

She frowned. "I'm not really sure, sir, but it does hurt. It's getting better though—and I think dinner will help."

He nodded faintly, looking a tad distant. "That does remind me—if we don't get a move on, we might be late for dinner altogether."

"Would you like to walk down with me, Professor?" Harriet asked on her way out.

"I just have a few more things to finish up—Headmaster duties, my dear. If you arrive before me, do try the boiled potatoes."

#

Harriet's stomach was still churning unpleasantly from her headache, but she had no plans to miss dinner. When she arrived at the Great Hall, she found her way blocked by a semi-transparent, fat ghost swathed in Victorian lace. He was quite large and took up a fair portion of the doorway. Harriet, who was not quite sure if it would be polite to walk through the man, lingered, unsure.

"Err—sir—would you mind…?"

"Would I mind what girl? Speak up!"

"I'm just trying to pass into the Great Hall—" While she distracted the ghost, several others slipped past him and into the hall. Harriet frowned at them, wishing she'd been smart enough to wait for someone else to distract the man.

"To gain entrance to the hall, you must pay the toll." The man crossed his arms over his large chest and stared at her smugly. He had a high forehead and a large, sloping nose and was particularly good at giving such haughty looks.

"What's the toll?" Harriet asked. She didn't have any Galleons on her.

He sniffed. "Too much for _you_."

"Oi, Grubb, leave her alone. She's a Firstie, can't you see?" An older Gryffindor student had been standing near the door. He gave the ghost a wide-eyed glance that she was sure portrayed much more than she was supposed to know. Under his breath, he hissed: "We agreed you would let all the Houses in, especially the First Years… Go on, Harriet, don't mind Edmund here."

Feeling very confused, Harriet made her way to Gryffindor table where Hermione and Ron had already started filling their plates.

"Did Grubb give you trouble?" Ron asked.

"Just a little. I don't remember seeing him at the Feast."

"The teachers convince him to stay away from the Great Hall on the first of the new term. Otherwise, you never see him in the hall—he died right in the doorway after eating some poisoned berries. Sometimes, he gets a little bitter and tries to keep students out. Bloke needs to just move on, already. It's not like he'll ever be able to enjoy food again, anyway."

Harriet glanced around the Great Hall. Professor Dumbledore still hadn't arrived, and Snape wasn't there yet either (though he sometimes went a day or two without showing up to the Great Hall). As if her thoughts had summoned them, Dumbledore and Snape came in just a moment later, both of them looking rather grave for such a pleasant evening meal.

"Why are the older students eating so fast?" Harriet asked.

"Are they?" Hermione asked. She had a book on the table, Important Modern Magical Discoveries, and hadn't looked away from it except to greet Harriet when she sat down.

Harriet frowned. "It seems like it, but I'm not sure."

"Try the chicken, Harriet, it's fantastic," Ron said, managing to swallow his food before opening his mouth.

Around the pleasing smells of all the food, Harriet found that her stomach was growling. She hadn't had a decent sized meal (eating large amounts of food made her stomach ill, though Madam Pomfrey had given her explicit orders to eat as much as she could keep down) since before the start of term. And the chicken did look amazing.

She was reaching for a drumstick when the drumstick reached back and smacked her on the hand leaving a large, greasy stain. For a moment, she stared from her hand to the drumstick feeling very confused.

Someone in the hall shrieked, then another person, and it only took Harriet a moment to figure out why. The mashed potatoes had come together and left its bowl, forming a semi-solid creature about the size of a miniature house-elf. It had seized a drumstick and was wielding it as a sword at a mass of noodles that was holding a spoon in a similar fashion. A mouth formed on the potato-head.

"You scurvy-riddled, flea-infested noodle-head," it cried sending bits of mashed potatoes everywhere. "Stand and fight like a—err—like a—"

Hermione cried out as the two enemies collided, sending noodles and potatoes all over her book. She slammed it shut and hunched her shoulders around it the way a mother might protect her child. All around the hall, the noise seemed to grow louder and louder. A glance told Harriet that the rest of the tables were facing similar issues: a mass of roast beef had come alive and was using steaming bowls of porridge to accost the turkey platter (which had formed arms of its own and was pelting the roast beef with baked potatoes).

Nearly everyone was on their feet, tripping over each other and shouting. In all the chaos, Harriet couldn't completely decide where the first glob of chili came from, but she had suspicions it was coming from the end of Gryffindor's table. It clipped the side of her head and got into one of her eyes.

"Food fight!" Someone shouted. Then, it wasn't just the food that was fighting, but the entire hall itself. The other students were lost in a haze of garlic toast, bread rolls, and casserole. Harriet felt a hand on her shoulder tugging her towards the door. Edmund Grubb was in the doorway of the Great Hall laughing so uproariously that glistening tears streamed down his cheeks.

Hermione had baked beans and vegetable soup on her robes. Her eyes were wide and vaguely teary as she looked down at her book, the cover smeared with mashed potatoes. Ron was nowhere to be seen, more than likely still enjoying the festivities of the Great Hall.

"What _was_ that?" Harriet asked, wiping her glasses off on her robes.

"I've no idea. It was like the food had come alive." She sniffled. "I need to see Madam Pince—oh I hope it isn't ruined. Do you think the library is still open?"

"Why don't you run and check?" Harriet said as soothingly as she could. "I'm sure it isn't the first time a book's been damaged. I bet Madam Pince will be able to fix it up with no problem."

Hermione gave a weak smile. "Will you come with me?"

"I think I'm going to try and get Ron to come out—you go on ahead, alright?"

Her expression darknened at Ron's name. "Good luck with that."

After the other girl had stalked off towards the library, Harriet turned back to the hall. She had every intention of going back in and keeping her word, dragging Ron out by his robes if she had to—but that was before she caught a glimpse of Professor Snape's cloak swirling around a corner on the next staircase up.

Harriet frowned. Where was he headed? The Dungeons were in the other direction entirely.

And that was how she found herself stalking the man. For once, she was glad she had grown up with the Dursleys. Harriet remained several dozen feet behind the man, moving as quietly as she might have in the middle of the night sneaking out of her cupboard to get food. She watched, crouched behind a suit of armor, as he went up a set of stairs and took a left. Harriet waited a sufficient amount of time before slipping up the staircase after him.

The corridor ahead looked dark and unused.

But there was the murmur of voices coming from a side hallway. She slipped herself behind a tapestry (thankfully the tapestry only contained tropical birds which gave angry cries and shuffled their feathers to the other side of picture). Holding her breath, she began to listen.

* * *

Fucking _Quirrell._

 _Keep an eye on Quirrell, would you?_ Albus's words replayed in Severus's head as they made the walk from the Headmaster's Office to the Great Hall. The girl had visited Albus only minutes ago (he was ashamed to say he had another letter tucked into his robes for Mr. Prince) and described strange symptoms upon entering Quirrell's classroom, and after reviewing his memory of the Welcome Feast, he found that Quirrell had been seated next to him when the girl experienced the pain in her scar.

It made sense—except for the fact that Quirrell was one of the most spineless, cowardly humans that Severus had ever had the misfortunate to work with. The man couldn't even ask Severus to pass the sugar at the beginning of the year staff meeting (not that Severus would have helped him to begin with), but for Quirrell and the Dark Lord to be in cahoots? He might sooner have suspected the Muggle Prime Minister.

But did that mean Severus wouldn't take the girl and Albus's words seriously? As bloody if.

After the talk in the Headmaster's Office, he found himself in a fouler mood than usual. When that fat tosser Grubb tried to stop them from entering the Hall, Severus had several choice words for him that weren't boarding-school appropriate.

"I have it on good authority that we are to expect a very interesting dinner this evening," Albus said. Severus was trying very hard not to glare—at the staff table, where he knew Quirrel was seated, or at the Gryffindor table where the root of all his troubles was probably picking at her dinner.

Severus sniffed and didn't reply.

"The Gryffindor Seventh Years finally decided on their last-laugh."

Just another tradition the younger wizard hated: Seventh Years pulling a prank before their graduation, though he sometimes had been known to enjoy the creativity his own House could produce. If it was the Gryffindors' lark this evening, then Severus wished that he'd had the foresight to skip dinner altogether.

But there was the matter of Quirrell. Severus finally allowed himself a look, and the man looked about as threatening as a Pygmy Puff. His purple turban made his head look comically small by comparison, and he seemed to be watching the Hall very carefully.

"Which professor assisted the Gryffindors?" He asked Albus. The professors encouraged the Seventh Years to come to them for help (as it could ensure a safe prank that also met school regulations). "Was it _you_?"

Albus was too busy forking slices of ham onto his plate. "I wasn't asked. It is certain that our resident Great Hall ghost Edmund Grubb gave assistance, but I thought otherwise that they were working alone this year."

It only took moments for the whole hall to go to hell—food took on corporeal shape and began to physically assault other corporeal foods. It was only a matter of time before students joined in and the entire room was raining vegetables and soups and pumpkin juice. Severus (who had cast a shield charm to keep away wayward food) watched the hall descend onto chaos with disgust.

A flash a purple caught his eye across the room, slipping out of the doors across the room. Fuming, Severus took off after him, ungently pushing aside students when they stepped into his way. He made it out into the hall just as Quirrell was headed up the staircase. He waited until the man had swept around the corner before stalking after him. He thought he had an idea where Quirrell might be headed—and it was lucky that Severus knew a shortcut.

He managed to be waiting at the door just as Quirrell arrived at the third floor corridor. For a moment, the man's resting face had been in such an expression of evil that Severus was immediately on his guard; however, as soon as Quirrell caught sight of the dark man, his face was struck pale and he glanced around as if to run.

"S-S-Severus."

"It seems as if we've had the same idea, Quirrell."

The man seemed to grow even paler. "I-I don't know what y-y-you m-mean."

"Don't you?" Severus asked softly, crossing his arms in a whisper of dark fabric. "Tell me: why did you leave the feast?"

Quirrell looked paralyzed, mouth opening and closing mutely.

"No answer? Let me guess—there was a commotion in the hall. No doubt everyone would be distracted. You thought it would be a perfect opportunity to make a visit to the third floor corridor—"

"No!"

"—to ensure the Stone was still _safe_."

Quirrell blinked. "Well—y-yes—"

"Then we had the _same idea_." He purposefully tried to infuse his words with as much meaning as possible, giving the man a dark glance.

That thought seemed to resonate with the Defense teacher. For a moment there was a glimmer of the expression Severus had seen on Quirrell as he rounded the corner: an expression of hatred, infused with suspicion. When he spoke, there was no sign of a stutter.

"Yes, perhaps we _did_ have the same idea."

"I'll take over from here."

The expression on Quirrell's face returned to normal: fearful and pale. "Y-yes. Of course."

Severus made sure not to move an inch even after Quirrell had disappeared down the hallway. He waited several long moments before he allowed himself to breathe normally. There was no doubt about it—something strange was going on with Quirrell. The girl's scar hurt in the man's presence and now he was stalking the third floor corridor. Severus would be willing to bet that he knew the Professor who had helped the Gryffindors plan their dinner-from-hell. He would never have suspected that he was so opportunistic.

He had a lot of thinking to do.

And just what the fuck was that behind the tapestry?

"Potter," he hissed after pulling the tapestry away from the wall. The girl scampered away from him like a frightened mouse. Her hair and robes were covered in food. "What are you doing here?"

The girl clammed up, looking about as terrified of him as Quirrell had. It was the first time that she'd given him such an expression (being perfectly honest about his nature, there was no doubt that if he hadn't ignored the girl so fiercely for the last two months, he probably would have become well accustomed to seeing such looks from her).

"Well?" He said, taking effort to reign in his murderous nature.

She said nothing.

"Ten points from Gryffindor for being a nosey chit. Mind your own business. Get back to your common room—and make yourself presentable before wandering the halls. _Go_."

He spent another several long moments watching her round the corner (the opposite corner as Quirrell, because for Merlin's sake it would have been quite counterproductive to have her running off to him, now wouldn't it?). He shook his head in disgust and began heading after her. The Headmaster's Office was on the seventh floor. That could be his excuse to making sure she returned to her dorm safely.

#

He waited until back in his chambers for the evening after another long discussion with the Headmaster about the stone to look at the girl's letter.

 _Mr. Prince:_

 _I'm writing to let you know that I was sorted into Gryffindor. It was a close call I think between Gryffindor and Slytherin, and the two Founders Statues got into a big argument about it. In the end, they let it be my choice. They said a lot of strange things while they argued that I couldn't make much sense of. Why would Slytherins want to take advantage of me?_

 _The train ride to Hogwarts was excellent and I met a few other First Years that I think are my friends now. Draco Malfoy (from my other letters) is still a prick._

 _Will you please write back? Even just a few words?_

 _Thanks,_

 _Harriet._

 _PS: Writing on a later date: My first week of classes went well, except for Potions really. What do you know about Professor Snape?_

Severus tried to imagine what he would write back as Mr. Prince, if he was in the practice of writing back to children and pretending to be fictional characters _. Mind your own fucking business_ , or something along those lines.

* * *

Harriet was very thoughtful when she made it back into the Common Room. Hermione and Ron were already there. Hermione had changed into fresh robes, though Ron's still smelled of vinegar.

"Where'd you run off to?" Hermione asked looking morose. Her book was nowhere to be seen.

"What was that in the Hall?" Harriet asked, hoping to distract the other girl from her question. Judging by the frown, it hadn't worked, but Ron was only too happy to indulge her. Apparently the food fiasco from the Great Hall was a Hogwarts tradition that no one had alerted Harriet to.

"It's been around for ages, the Seventh Years' pranks," Ron said after everyone had met back up in the Common Room. "Sometimes the Houses work together—but it's been nearly fifty years since that happened. Usually the Seventh Years from each House come up with their own pranks. Last year, the Gryffindors asked Fred and George for help. They rarely ever ask younger students, so it was a really prestigious thing."

"Are you going to tell us where you were now?" Hermione asked. Harriet realized that the girl looked hurt, lips pressed together volatilely while she picked at a loose thread on her armchair.

So Harriet started at the beginning, telling Ron and Hermione a tame version of her summer: Mr. Prince and the Professor Snape's rescue of her from the Dursley's and how she had spent the summer at Hogwarts. She then told them (as best as she could from her memory) about following Professor Snape to the third floor and the conversation she had overheard between him and Quirrell.

"The Third Floor? Isn't that the corridor Professor Dumbledore said was off limits to students? Harriet, you could have gotten into so much trouble—"

"What is it that Snape was after?" Ron interrupted. "A stone? Like a diamond, maybe?"

"Professor Snape?" Harriet asked, startled. "I thought it was Professor Quirrell who was after something."

"You said that Professor Snape was sounding all slimy and sneaky—"

"I said he sounded sneaky, definitely not _slimy_ ," Harriet said coldly. "I trust Professor Snape. I think. I mean, he's definitely not a nice man, but I don't think he'd steal from the Headmaster."

"They _both_ sounded a little sneaky," Hermione said, looking quite cross, as if she'd much prefer to be discussing all the ways Harriet could have lost them points, received detention, or been expelled. "And, no offense, but Professor Quirrell doesn't exactly look like some sort of evil mastermind."

Harriet frowned. She couldn't deny that. "I asked Mr. Prince about Professor Snape. I trust Mr. Prince more than I trust anyone else in the whole world. He'll know one way or the other. I just know it."

"But Harriet," Hermione said. "You said Mr. Prince hasn't written you back _ever_. What makes you think he'll write back now?"

"He has to," she said fiercely. "I'll take another letter to Dumbledore, first thing tomorrow morning."

There must have been something in Harriet's voice that kept the other girl from commenting, because she just nodded and gave a wane smile.

#

Saturday morning dawned beautifully sunny, with clear blue skies as far as Harriet, Ron, and Hermione could see. After Harriet took another letter to Dumbledore (her most desperate yet), the three of them headed down to the Great Hall for breakfast. Ron and Harriet seemed to be much more enthusiastic about the upcoming flying lesson than Hermione was, though she was doing her part by reading _Balance and Broomsticks: A Beginner's Guide to Flying_ , with _Quidditch Through the Ages_ sitting on the table in front of her.

"Another class we have with the Slytherins—how many Galleons do you want to bet that Malfoy is in this one too?" Ron's eyes were narrowed as he stared down the blond boy across the room. Malfoy had his back to them and didn't seem to notice the daggers Ron was wishing into him.

"Draco said he was a good flyer, too," Harriet said. "At least, that's what he told me in Diagon Alley. It might have been hot air."

"It's probably not," Ron said glumly. "Flying is so popular in wizarding families. That's how some of them figure out if their kids are magical or not—put them on a broom and see if they hold their own. I've been flying since I was old enough to walk and talk, really."

Harriet, who had never even touched a broom, frowned. Hermione scoffed.

"Melinda Mitterby of the Montrose Magpies was a Muggleborn, and she was the best Keeper the Magpies had seen in decades." Ron turned red at this and looked as if he had something else to say, but Harriet quickly reminded her two friends of the time.

Flying lessons were held on a strip of lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to the Forbidden Forest. Some other First Year Slytherin and Gryffindor students had already arrived. A few dozen broomsticks rested in neat intervals in the rippling grass. The teacher, Madam Hooch, was a thin woman with short gray hair and yellow eyes. Harriet had seen her a few times in the Great Hall over the summer. She gave the girl a thin-lipped smile and nod of the head as she went by.

Now why couldn't Snape have done such a thing?

Trying to put the Potion's Master from her mind, Harriet did as Madam Hooch demanded and stood next to a vacant broomstick, Hermione on one side and Ron on the other. The brooms looked quite old, with weathered wood and twigs sticking out haphazardly in every direction. The students rested hands over the top of the brooms and shouted, "Up!"

Harriet's broom jumped into her hand at once, but not many others did. Hermione's did nothing but roll over lethargically on the ground, and Neville's (nearly three Gryffindors down) didn't move at all. Draco had been one of the few whose brooms responded favorably, which made her think that Ron had been right. She comforted herself with what Hermione had said at breakfast about Melinda Mitt-whatever, who was a woman and a Muggleborn and who was still brilliant at flying.

Madam Hooch demonstrated how to mount their brooms without sliding off either end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," said Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle—three—two—"

But Neville, nerves strung tight like wires, kicked off before the whistle had been blown. He began to rise straight up and quite quickly. His face was round and white like the moon, and it only grew paler as he slid off the end and crashed into the ground with a sickening crack. The broomstick continued on its way, drifting lazily towards the Forbidden Forest.

Madam Hooch left them with explicit instructions under the threat of expulsion not to move while she escorted Neville (who had broken his wrist) to the hospital wing.

No sooner were the two out of earshot than Malfoy burst into laughter.

"Did you see his face, the great lump?"

The other Slytherins joined in.

"Quit, Draco," Harriet snapped.

"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" said Pansy Parkinson, the hard-faced Slytherin girl that had joined Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle in the train compartment (and who had clearly hated Harriet from the start). "Never thought _you'd_ like fat little crybabies, Potter."

"Look!" said Malfoy, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass. "It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him."

And it was—a Remembrall, a sphere the size of a tennis ball that would fill with red smoke when one had forgotten something (though with Neville, it was more often than not filled with such red smoke).

"Give that here, Draco," said Harriet quietly. Everyone stopped talking to watch.

"I'd rather not. I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find—how about—up a tree?" Draco leapt onto his broomstick and took off. He hadn't been lying, he _could_ fly well.

Harriet, mounting her own broomstick, followed a little shakily. She could hear Hermione calling out after her, pleading with her to come back down, but Harriet wouldn't listen. The wind rushed through her ears, tussling her red hair, and she found herself smiling against her will. She was _flying_.

The two of them hovered level with the topmost branches of an oak tree.

"You said you'd stop doing things like this," Harriet reminded him, refusing to look down. "It was just yesterday. You said that you'd had a change of heart—"

"I said that about Weasley and Granger, but not Longbottom. Give it up, Potter—he's a useless lump. If I can't give _him_ a hard time, who can I?"

"Not my friends," Harriet said through her teeth. Draco's face hardened.

"And _we're_ not friends? Look, Potter. I'm trying to be nicer or whatever, but you're not making it easy for me. Cut me some slack, and let me have some fun."

Harriet could think of nothing nice to say. Draco was being exactly like Dudley—and even if he had apologized for being rude to Hermione and Ron, deep down, Harriet didn't believe that anything had changed. She held out her hand for the Remembrall, mutely.

"If you want it so badly—catch it, then!" He threw the glass ball high into the air and streaked back toward the ground.

With little forethought, Harriet dove after it, leaning nearly horizontal on her broomstick and pushing it to its limit. The wind tore at her long hair and stung at her eyes, but she forced them to stay open. She stretched out one pale hand, reaching—reaching—and caught it just in time to pull her broom straight and topple gently onto the grass with the Remembrall clutched safely in her fist.

Which, naturally, was the moment Professor McGonagall decided to appear.

By the grace of whatever deity had decided to bless Harriet so much in the last handful of months, Harriet was not expelled. As a matter of fact, she was being rewarded with the position of Seeker for the Gryffindor Quidditch team—what a Seeker was or what it did, she wasn't quite sure, but since she already had a scheduled practice with the team captain, Oliver Wood, Harriet figured that she would figure it out soon enough.

She went to sleep without thought of Professor Snape or Professor Quirrell or Mr. Prince or anyone, and when she slept, she dreamed of flying.

* * *

If he had hoped that he might be able to survive an entire day without a mention of the Potter girl's name (wasn't he forced to think of her enough in his own head? Did everyone have to talk about the girl without cessation?), he had been sorely mistaken. Just the next evening, Severus stopped by the Staff Room. He did not often have the necessity—nor the desire—to visit the Staff Room, but tonight he found himself longing for company that wasn't necessarily the Headmaster's.

He had not even opened the door to the room when the girl's name was accosting him. Minerva and Filius were seated in armchairs by the fire, nursing mugs of fragrant tea.

"—Harriet zips _right_ passed my window—"

Severus pretended to be deaf while making his own cup of tea, though Minerva's voice grew louder for what he realized was his own benefit. The stirring of his spoon slowed and slowed until it stopped altogether.

"A First Year as your Seeker?" He hissed, nearly sloshing scalding tea all over his robes. "Gryffindor's Quidditch team must truly be desperate."

Minerva, who usually gave in to Severus's goading for the sake of good-natured ribbing, only smiled wider. Her expression turned insipid, as if she was an adult humoring a young child. She hummed and sipped from her tea.

"Spoken like a man who feels _fear_. I believe the first Quidditch match of the year is Gryffindor versus Slytherin? We'll see who holds the House Cup this year."

Had he really thought he wanted company? He took his tea with him and let the door slam shut on McGonagall's laughter, but the sound still followed him down into the dungeons. Why could the girl he swore to protect be terrified of heights and prefer reading books and playing board games? Because it would have made his life a little bloody easier, of course.

Instead, his girl had a penchant for sneaking around, abusive guardians, and the desire to ride a stick around hundreds of feet above the ground. Not for the first time, Severus wondered what his life might have been like if he'd never sold his soul to the Dark Lord. Potter and Lily may have still been alive, raising their red-headed spawn, and Severus would be—well, anywhere but Hogwarts.

Majorca sounded nice.

Back in his quarters, he had just sat down when the Floo flared green. Nearly groaning with dread, Severus began to push himself up out of his chair when he saw that it was not a person coming through the Floo but a piece of parchment. He recognized the writing immediately.

 _Mr. Prince:_

 _It is urgent._

 _Yesterday evening I overheard a conversation between Professor Snape and Professor Quirrell. They were talking about a stone, though I don't know much else. You'll probably think I'm being silly, but I need to know if Professor Snape is trustworthy. PLEASE_ (underlined thrice) _write back._

 _Harriet_

* * *

 **Author's Note: Thank you all for the more than kind follows, favorites, and reviews.**

 **I took some liberties with canon. Harriet's schedule has changed slightly, and the number of Hogwarts students is more comparable to JK's original number of 600.**

 **I thought to try something new: anyone who logs in and reviews will receive a special preview of the next chapter (it may be unedited, but if it's Harriet/Snape interaction, is anyone really going to be so picky?). If you are interested in such a thing, you need only review, but please remember to log in. If you're not interested but still wish to review, just say so.**

 ***In this case, review to receive Mr. Prince's letter back to Harriet that will appear next chapter.***

 **Also, the further I plan ahead in this story, the more AU things get. If there's a particular plot line that you're dying to see stay as it is—or perhaps one you're dying to see change—please note that the author certainly takes every suggestion made in a review or PM seriously.**

 **Thoughts?**


	6. The Third Floor Corridor

**I'm very sorry to have left you all waiting so long. Real life has been a cocktail of very distracting events. Not to mention that (due to my own carelessness) I lost several thousand words that should have made up the ending of this chapter. It was very disheartening, and I had to put the chapter away and could barely stand to look at it until now. As it is, you've waited long enough, so I'd like to give you something as opposed to nothing. I hope that some words from you all (compliments or criticism always welcome) might light the fire under my ass again.**

 **In the meantime, thank you all so much for the reviews and follows and favorites! I haven't forgotten about this story.**

* * *

The Third Floor Corridor

Severus Snape stood for several long moments wondering just what in the bloody hell he was going to do about this mess. He'd known the girl had been listening to his conversation with Quirrell, but for her to overhear about the Stone was definitely not good. It might have be existing less in the realm of Not Good and more in the realm of Bloody Fucking Terrible. It was much easier to keep the girl away from the Stone when she didn't know of its existence.

There was a sense of urgency about her letter (perhaps it was the 'this is urgent' or 'PLEASE reply' parts that displayed that urgency, but he wasn't going to get picky about it), and it became clear to him just what he was going to have to do.

He was going to have to write back.

Severus pulled out a fresh page of parchment with such fury that he tore it down the middle and had to repair it. The ink he used was black as his mood, and (once a charm was cast to make his handwriting appear different) he quickly scrawled a reply.

 _H:_

 _Quit writing me so many letters. From now on, write only when it is important. Because I'm sure this requires further explanation, 'important' includes a.—when you are in danger. b.—you believe, even in the slightest, that you might be in danger._

 _In the wizarding world, letters do not necessarily need addresses. Quit delivering your letters to the Headmaster (they have all arrived to me sealed, but that does not mean he isn't reading them and resealing them). Hogwarts has an owlery. Choose the most inconspicuous looking owl there, tell it to find me and it will. The manner in which you have received this letter is the manner in which you will receive any letter by me in the future._

 _Stop sneaking around a castle approximately one million times larger than your bloody cupboard, and especially stop listening into conversations that aren't any of your business. You're asking for trouble, and I can't come popping out from behind a hedge to help you._

 _I can't emphasize this enough. Mind. Your. Own. Business._

Severus was going to leave the letter just at that—he wasn't even going to bother signing the bloody thing—but he couldn't ignore the reason the girl had written to him in the first place. Is Professor Snape trustworthy? Of course he wasn't fucking trustworthy. He was a Death Eater, but the girl didn't know that, did she?

But could he really tell the girl not to trust him? Severus considered his self-deprecating ways to be formidable, but not _this_ formidable. Not to mention, if there was one person his loyalties rested with, it was the late Lily Evans. To an extent, those loyalties now belonged to Lily's only child. If she didn't trust him, who could she trust? Her little friends? _Dumbledore_?

Unaware of the significance this single action would play on Harriet Potter, Severus added a neat postscript.

 _Severus Snape may be the_ only _one you can trust._

To get the letter to the girl and no one else, he had to be tricky. He could use one of the girl's hairs to spell the letter invisible to anyone except for her. Then, all that needed to be done was to get the letter to the girl's dorm room, which was eerily easy for the man. Hopefully she had enough sense to open the thing in private: a girl opening an invisible letter in front of her friends could be rather suspicious.

Now there was just the matter of whether or not to alert the Headmaster that the Potter girl knew about the Sorcerer's Stone, even if she did not yet know what the 'Stone' was. He twirled a quill while he ruminated. Obviously, the Headmaster didn't yet know (which meant that he wasn't reading the girl's letters, a surprising turn of events for Severus), as he would have called the younger wizard into his office immediately.

Unless he _did_ know, and he was testing Severus. After all, how much could you really trust a 'former' Death Eater? That bloody prophecy more than likely had something to do with it as well—not the one that had caused the death of his only friend, but the other prophecy that had _not one fucking thing_ to do with him. The Headmaster was such a meddling old man prattling about _love_.

The hand clutching his quill clenched and snapped it neatly in two.

Grabbing a handful of Floo, he tossed it into the grate with the broken quill and called out his destination, bidding the paranoid voices in the back of his head to happily quit bleating. Testing him or not, alerting the Headmaster to the girl's knowledge of the Stone was the best option. He knew this because it was precisely the option he did not want to go through with. If there was one thing that he'd learned in his miserable life, it was that the right thing is most often the thing which one _does not want to do._

#

Harriet awoke to the sound of Lavender and Parvati whispering to each other in their bunk. Even though it was the weekend and she could feel that it was early (months in her cupboard with nothing but her internal clock to let her know when it was day or night had tuned it finely), she didn't mind. She had been having a marvelous dream about the wind in her hair and on her face.

The events of yesterday came back to her slowly as if it had been the dream: flying lessons with the Slytherins, Draco stealing Neville's Remembrall, Professor McGonagall asking Harriet to be Gryffindor's new Seeker. She couldn't wait to see the look on Draco's face when he found out. Maybe if she rolled over and kept very still, she could slip back asleep and dream of it.

But when she rolled, something crinkled underneath her, like she'd fallen asleep with parchment on her bed. She opened bleary eyes and cast a glance at the other girls in the room. It was empty except for Parvati and Lavender, who both seemed too consumed in each other to notice. Lavender was braiding Parvati's hair in a thick, glossy braid down her back while they both gossiped.

It was an envelope, completely blank and unsealed. Removing the inside letter, her heart jumped into her throat. She read it, breathless. Embarrassment, relief, and happiness kept a strange, fluttering company in her stomach. She read it once, twice, three times in a row, picking it apart. It wasn't _her_ fault she didn't know anything about magical postage; she'd grown up with the Durlseys after all. The Headmaster wouldn't have read her letters anyway—wasn't such a thing illegal? At least, it had been in the Muggle world.

She reread the last line several times. _Severus Snape may be the_ only _one you can trust._ Harriet hadn't known Professor Snape's first name before, but it was unique like the man himself. If Mr. Prince thought Professor Snape could be trusted, then Harriet felt the same.

What did that mean for Professor Quirrell?

Reclining on her bed, she stared off, thinking. Not much, Harriet decided. After sneaking through the castle and eavesdropping on the two professors' conversation, it had all seemed a lot more urgent, but Harriet had to admit that without knowing what the professors were arguing over, there wasn't a lot she could rightfully be concerned about. Mr. Prince had told her to mind her own business, anyway.

Some casual clothes tucked under her arm, she went into the bathroom to change. Some of the girls were comfortable enough to change in the dorm room, but she wasn't one of them. After donning her jeans and a soft black jumper that Professor Snape had gotten for her, she went down into the Common Room to find Ron playing a game of wizard's chess against an older student. Hermione was reading a book that she had found in the library the day before: _The Book of Stones, Wizard Edition._

"He wrote back," Harriet said urgently. A few moments later and the three of them had sequestered a trio of armchairs in the corner, heads close together to so one would overhear their hushed words. "I found this on my bed this morning."

When she pulled out the letter from Mr. Prince, Hermione and Ron both looked at her strangely.

"What is it?" Hermione asked slowly.

"What do you mean, 'what is it'? It's a letter, can't you see?"

"There's nothing there," Ron said. He and Hermione glanced at each other out of the corner of their eyes as if they thought she might be crazy. Harriet clenched the letter in her fist, listening to the parchment buckle under her grip.

"Here. Feel." She thrust the envelope at them and watched the surprise come across their faces.

"It's invisible!" Hermione whispered, looking impressed. "How ever did he get it into the dormitory?"

"He's a very powerful wizard," Harriet boasted. "A lot of the letter was just him commenting on my other letters, but in the very last line says to trust Professor Snape completely."

Hermione and Ron still looked rather dubious, but they said nothing. The three agreed that there was nothing much that could be done by eleven-year-olds ("What are we supposed to do? Protect some fancy stone from the likes of teachers?" Ron wondered helpfully), but that didn't mean Hermione couldn't scour readings about stones in the wizarding world.

"Any stone being held here at Hogwarts must be very valuable, but do you know how many valuable 'stones' there are in the world? Of course it could be a precious stone, like a diamond, but with Hogwart's wealth, that doesn't seem plausible to me. The stone would have to be very big to be so valuable. What use would a stone like _that_ be to a school? Unless it was a famous precious stone such as the jewel of—"

Ron groaned and rolled his eyes. Hermione's lips grew thin, and she closed the book she had been reading. Huffing, she motioned for Harriet to follow her into the dormitory.

"I'll be there soon. I need to—err—take care of something first." Hermione nodded, irritated, and walked up the stairs with her spine so straight and tense that it looked painful.

"What it is you have to do?" Ron asked.

"What _we_ have to do—I want to make a stop at that forbidden corridor. Are you in or are you out?"

#

Harriet and Ron began to haunt the third floor corridor in the weeks before Halloween. The door they found was locked, and while Ron knew vaguely of a spell that could unlock doors ("I mean, that sounds dead useful, right? There's got to be magic for it—") neither of them new what it was or how to perform it. Hermione would know, but Harriet didn't want her to know that she and Ron were breaking any rules—such a thought was enough to give Hermione a fit. Investigating the locked room proved to be nearly impossible, since Filch seemed to linger about the place as well with his sniffing, prowling cat, Mrs. Norris.

Harriet also had a suspicion that Professor Snape was following her around the castle. It seemed that wherever she went, it wasn't long before he arrived, looking tired and furious, accusing her of doing something wrong and ordering her back to her dormitory.

To add insult to injury, Hermione's work with searching for stones still hadn't offered any breakthroughs.

"We're terrible sleuths," Harriet mumbled into her place setting at dinner. For once she'd nearly cleared her plate—Oliver Wood had been running her ragged at Quidditch practices. They always warmed up with various exercises around the pitch. Once she was sweating he would throw golf balls to her through the air while she whipped around on her broom trying to catch them all (though she was quite good at that). Once it was too dark to see, they would run more laps around the pitch. Most days, Harriet returned to her common room with her body aching, covered in bruises but very, very happy.

"All we have to go on is 'stone.' The world is _made_ of stone. It's possibly one of the most common objects in the natural world. Not only do we have no idea what _kind_ of stone, we don't even know _why_ it's at Hogwarts or why it's being hidden," Hermione said, looking rather cross with Harriet's criticism of her sleuthing skills.

" _You're_ doing brilliant," Harriet said as brightly as she could, watching the other girl's face redden with the compliment. "It's just Ron and I who aren't having much luck."

"Well if you two would tell me what you're doing when you go off alone, I might be able to help. You'd better not be snooping around the forbidden corridor. Professor Dumbledore said explicitly at the beginning of the year—"

"Why would you think _that_?" Harriet asked innocently.

Suddenly, a hand came down on her shoulder, startling her so fiercely that she nearly knocked over her goblet of pumpkin juice.

"Steady, Potter," Draco said coolly. "Granger, Weasley."

To give Draco credit, he was no colder to Hermione and Ron than he had been to Harriet herself. Ron scoffed and continued shoveling mashed potatoes into his mouth while Hermione resolutely ignored the blond boy's presence.

"You scared me. What do you want?"

"You're still mad at me for the Longbottom incident."

"How'd you guess?" She remarked just as coolly, turning back to her dinner plate. He grabbed her arm again, turning her back towards him. Ron stood so quickly that he _did_ knock over his goblet of pumpkin juice.

"Let go of her Malfoy," he said, face as red as his hair.

"This is between Potter and me, Weasley. Stay out of it."

"I've had enough of you—"

"Oh, have you?"

"I'd watch my mouth if I were you. I grew up with five brothers—"

"Is that a threat? My father knows very important people at the Ministry. He could have your father sacked with a single owl."

"Always hiding behind your father. If he were here, who would _he_ hide behind? Your mum?"

" _That's it_ ," Draco hissed, two spots of hectic-red high in his cheeks. "You and I, Weasley. We'll have a wizards duel. Tonight—midnight—in the trophy room. That's always unlocked. That is—if you're not _afraid_."

"Harriet's my second." The girl in question looked at Ron with muted horror, unsure what he had just conscripted her for. "Who's yours? Mummy?"

Nearly apoplectic with rage, Draco replied through his teeth. "Crabbe."

After the blond boy and his Slytherin goons were gone, the three of them put their heads together so that Ron could explain. Apparently, a wizards duel was rather like a formal fight (she thought it sounded rather silly) and Harriet was to take over the duel in the event of Ron's death.

"Is that a possibility?" Harriet asked.

"Of course not—well, maybe in a proper wizards duel. All Malfoy and I will be able to do is send sparks at each other."

"Malfoy comes from an old pureblood family," Hermione said snottily. "You don't think he's been studying dark spells since he was old enough to talk?"

"I come from an old pureblood family too, and _I_ don't know anything about dark spells."

Hermione blushed. "Well _your_ family sounds like it's full of decent people—"

"The only way to make sure nothing happens is if we go for ourselves," Harriet said to her. "Friends watch out for each other."

" _He_ doesn't think of me as a friend," Hermione said, jerking her head towards Ron. "But you're right. Friends do watch out for each other. That's _precisely_ why I'm going to tell a prefect right now."

"You can't!" Ron shouted causing Parvati Patil to glance over. He lowered his voice. "I do think of you as a friend—but friends don't tell on their friends."

She frowned. "You're just saying that because you don't want me to tell on you."

"That's not true," he replied through gritted teeth. Hermione scoffed, standing up from her mostly full plate. Harriet had sat watching warily throughout their argument feeling very uncomfortable. She stood after Hermione, gave Ron an apologetic glance, and then followed the girl out of the Great Hall.

Harriet caught up with Hermione the next floor up. Her chest clenched to see tears in the other girl's eyes when she whirled around.

"You don't need to follow me," Hermione said, her voice thick with emotion. "You've been spending all your time with Ron lately—won't tell me what you're doing—don't have to _pretend_ —"

The rest of her words were cut off as Harriet through her arms around her. Harriet was learning that making and retaining friends was a skill, and not one she was necessarily good at. There hadn't been much use for people skills while she lived with the Durlseys—it was rather like a muscle that needed flexing, only hers had atrophied. Harriet wanted very much to be a good friend, but she wasn't sure she knew how. Clearly, spending more time with Ron while being secretive about it was frowned upon.

"Let me explain," Harriet pleaded. If Hermione had been any less sensible, she might have stormed off again and refused to listen. As it was, she crossed her arms, sniffing back her tears, and waited.

So Harriet told her just what Ron had been up to involving the third floor corridor.

"Why didn't you just _tell_ me that?" Hermione lamented.

"Because you're…well…you're more…you prefer to follow the rules more, is all—and that's not a bad thing," Harriet added hurriedly. Hermione gave a short laugh, though it still sounded a little teary.

"I understand. I _think_. It's this whole House system. I guess I didn't have a lot of friends before I came to Hogwarts—none, really—and I didn't want to upset the rest of the Gryffindors. Logically speaking, it makes sense that the majority of our friendships will come from those students we live with and have classes with and—"

"I'm your friend," Harriet said.

Hermione smiled. "Then which way is this forbidden corridor?"

#

"Hermione, you don't have to do this," Harriet said slowly while the other girl peaked around the corner to make sure the adjacent corridor was empty.

"This is what friends do, isn't it? They have adventures together? You said you didn't know the spells to unlock doors—it's simple really, and I _do_ know it, so why not? We'll be quick. Hurry, there's no one coming." Hermione sounded confident, but looked faintly feverish.

So the two sprinted to the locked door that Harriet had seen Quirrell and Professor Snape arguing outside of weeks earlier. They were overcome with nervous laughter that they stifled behind their hands while Hermione took her wand from her robes, tapped the lock and whispered: " _Alohamora_."

They opened the door and rushed through before anyone could walk by, and they remained in the room for nearly five full seconds. They exited the room in a flurry of limbs and hair, slamming it behind them, with Hermione hastily casting the spell required to lock the door. Staring at each other, Harriet promptly collapsed into a heap of semi-boneless human-jelly. It took an entire minute for Hermione to coax her back onto her feet, and then they leaned on each other, stumbling back to the Common Room.


	7. New Leads

New Leads

" _WHAT_?" Ron bellowed. Hermione clapped a hand over his mouth, throwing a glance to the door. The boy's dormitory was the only place the three of them of could convene with any semblance of privacy, as the rest of the First Years were being swindled by Fred and George in the Common Room with magnetized Gobstones.

Hermione yelped, withdrawing her hand like she'd been burnt.

"Oh _disgusting_ Ronald—you've licked me!" Her face scrunched up as if she had just sucked on a lemon and she wiped her hand on the coverlet of Ron's bed while the boy watched on, expression warring between victorious and murderous. He turned his eyes to Harriet who had been watching, amused. She struggled to adapt a serious expression, but when she saw the hurt in his eyes, it didn't take much work.

"Why, why, _why_ didn't you come back to the Great Hall for me? We've been standing outside that room for weeks now!"

With no words forthcoming, Hermione replied before Harriet could open her mouth. "Honestly! It's not as if we planned it ahead of time. It was a spur of the moment decision."

Harriet tried a different tactic to diffuse Ron's anger: "It had _three bloody heads_!"

Ron let out a groan and buried his freckled face in his hands. When he spoke, his voice was muffled by fingers and childish agony. "Ugh that sounds brill— _why, why, why_?"

"That is a good question," Hermione said, more to herself than anyone. "Why? Why a three headed dog? Well, I mean, clearly it's guarding the stone. But this stone must be even more powerful than we thought for it to warrant such protection." She drifted off, a furrow between both of her brows, thoughtful. She became still like a statue.

Ron was giving Harriet an impressive glare, as if to say, _You took_ her _over_ me _?_ Harriet gave a weak, apologetic smile. Clearly maintaining a friendly balance between Hermione and Ron was going to be difficult. Was friendship always this hard? Maybe when both of your only friends didn't like each other.

Hermione came to life again, her face lighting up. "Alright, so I think we have some new leads to follow. One: I'm going to go back through _The Book of Stones_ and only look at the stones with magical properties. Two: the three headed dog. I know I've heard of such a thing in mythology, but I can't remember it off of the top of my head—"

"I can be some help there," Harriet chimed in. "I know just the man who would know something about three headed dogs. I don't think he would mind if we all stopped by for tea."

"It will have to wait until tomorrow, as it's almost curfew—"

" _What_?" Ron shrieked in a decidedly feminine manner. He scrambled off of his bed and started to throw his discarded robes on over his school uniform. "I almost forgot about Malfoy! I wanted to get to the Trophy Room early and stake the place out, just in case that snake decides to get there first and ambush me."

Hermione scoffed under her breath, rolling her eyes. Ron's gaze narrowed in on her dangerously.

"What _now_?"

Hermione's thin face wore a haughty look very well. She crossed her arms across her chest and stared up at the ceiling as if there was something there more attention consuming than her friends in front of her. " _You_."

"What about _me_?"

"Do you really think that Malfoy was going to meet you in the Trophy Room? You said it yourself that all you and Malfoy would be able to do is send sparks at each other. What kind of Slytherin, as pompous as we know Malfoy to be, would _really_ meet for a wizard's duel—" she said the term so scathingly that even Ron flinched, "—when he's incapable of fighting you properly?"

"You think he's setting us up?" Harriet had stood to shrug on her own robes—after all, she was Ron's second—but sat down on the mattress to think over what Hermione was saying.

"I think that's _exactly_ what he's going to do. Either he will show up knowing how to do a lot more than just send sparks at you, Ronald, or the only person who's going to show up to the trophy room tonight is Filch, on Malfoy's orders."

Her logic was indisputable. Ron and Harriet gave each other faintly impressed looks, which made Hermione roll her eyes all the more.

"That _does_ make sense," Harriet said to Ron carefully. "Maybe we shouldn't show."

There was a long moment of silence. At last, Ron gave out a long breath.

"Yeah. Alright. Whatever."

Afterwards, Ron slipped into a morose mood that couldn't be roused even by talk of the three headed dog, so Harriet and Hermione decided to go back to their own dorm. They crawled into Harriet's bed in the corner and drew the curtains, whispering about the stone until conversation was constantly punctuated with both girls' yawns and Hermione slipped out to crawl into her own bed. Within moments of resting her head on her pillow, Harriet was asleep.

#

The next time Harriet's eyes opened, she was in her cupboard. The darkness was thick and irrefutable. Hogwarts was nothing but a faint, fuzzy dream of Mr. Prince and beautiful friends and warm magic.

There was a faint scratching sound that had Harriet sitting up in her bed. It was coming from the cupboard door.

"Let me in," a voice whispered. "Let me in, let me in, let me in."

 _No_ , Harriet mouthed, throat too dry and terrified to speak. As if it had heard her, the scratching grew louder.

"Let-me-in-let-me-in-let-me-in!"

"No!" She cried out, the cupboard door bursting open with the sound of her voice. Standing there, outlined by light, was a tall man with a strange shaped head—or was there something on his head?—and his arms were outstretched as he came toward her, still all the time insisting _Let me in let me in letmeinletmeinletmein!_

Harriet awoke from her dream, paralyzed with horror. She was sweating and shaking, her heart pounding hard enough to beat out of her chest. But it was a dream—of _course_ Hogwarts was real. She wasn't in her cupboard. There was no man in the room, only girls, all safely tucked into their beds asleep—

Except for Hermione, who was creeping towards the door. Her white nightgown could be seen underneath her hastily worn robes, slippers tucked on her feet to keep them from the cool floor. For a moment, Harriet could do nothing but stare, blankly. What was Hermione doing, sneaking out of the dormitory in the middle of the night?

And why wasn't Harriet already up and going after her? Throwing off the scarlet covers, she flinched as her bare feet touched down on the stone floor but carefully crept to the door, peaking her head out just in time to see Hermione's white nightgown slip around the corner and out into the Common Room.

Holding her breath, Harriet crept down after her.

The Common Room was dim, a fire just barely burning in the grate. Hermione was pacing in front of it, hair a bushy mess, chewing on her nails. A noise caught her attention and she looked in Harriet's direction. Sure that she'd been caught, she prepared to come clean to her friend—only for Ron to suddenly come creeping through the opening to the boy's dormitory just feet from her.

"You!" Ron hissed, throwing a glance behind him. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"I suspected you would try to sneak out. You aren't exactly the kind of boy to listen to reason—"

"You're bloody right I'm not— _hey_!"

"I only meant that I knew you would try to sneak out anyway. You've got—you've got pride—"

"So, what? You're going to tattle on me? Is McGonagall already on her way?"

Breathless, Hermione shook her head. "I'm going to go with you."

"WHAT?"

"Shh!" Hermione groaned quietly and dropped into the nearest armchair. "Don't you know how _silly_ you'll look if you show up without a second? Not to mention I'm the smartest of us all. I actually _know_ spells—I mean, sure I've never practiced them, but I've always been decent at practicals. Let me go with you. I can help."

Ron watched her with narrowed eyes. "You really stayed up all this time, waiting for me, to _help_ me?"

"Yes," Hermione said. Harriet couldn't be sure, but she thought that Hermione's face seemed a little flushed in the dim light of the fire.

Harriet gaped. She felt like she was watching one of Aunt Petunia's soaps.

"We've got to hurry," Ron said. "It's almost midnight. I would have left ages ago, but Seamus kept rolling around and muttering—I couldn't tell if he was asleep or—anyway, let's be off—"

And the door to the Common Room opened and closed until the only person awake and remaining was a stunned Harriet Potter. She came out into the room as if thinking to follow them, but sat down in an armchair instead, feeling faintly weak and more than a little hurt. The fire burned ever lower, and when Ron and Hermione didn't return after a few minutes, Harriet went back into the dormitory with tears in her eyes.

Suddenly, she was stepping on something warm and furry and living, which gave a great _YOWL_ and took off into the darkness of the room.

Heart stuttering, Harriet winced in sympathy, and the tears she'd been trying to hold in began to fall. _Bast_.

"Who's there?" Someone mumbled sleepily.

"Sod off!" Harriet said thickly, crawling into her bed. She drew the curtains, pressed the pillow over her face so that she could cry in peace, and managed to fall asleep once more, this time without dreams.

#

In the morning, Gryffindor was missing nearly fifty House points. The table was a grim place to dine, with students bickering back and forth about where the points might have gone. Hermione and Ron looked to be grimmest of all, though they sometimes could be caught glancing towards each other and smiling secretively.

Harriet speared her sausage with such force that her fork scratched against the porcelain plate.

"Sleep well?" She asked Hermione while taking a bite of sausage and chewing it with more gusto that necessary.

"Not as well as I could have," the girl admitted, giving a wane smile.

Harriet grunted, eyes narrowed.

Someone dropped onto the seat next to her, and she was looking at Parvati's exotic skin and pretty brown eyes, though they were narrowed with anger.

"Potter. I don't know what you were doing up last night, but I'll tell McGonagall about you and your cat's little midnight activities if you don't start keeping it locked up. Honestly. Some people were trying to sleep."

Harriet winced remembering the harsh noise the cat had made when she tramped on its tail. This morning, it refused to even come out from underneath her bed. "Sorry. She's a black cat—she blends in, in the dark."

Parvati sniffed primly. "Get a nightlight. Good day."

Ron and Hermione's faces had gone white. Harriet resumed spearing her sausage.

"So—Malfoy didn't show?" She asked, working hard to keep her voice neutral.

Hermione shook her head. "No."

"No, but Snape did," Ron added glumly. "Just look at him up there—he looks like Christmas came early."

Harriet cast a glance at the Staff Table. She wouldn't say that he looked exactly as Ron had said, but he was certainly watching the Gryffindor table with an almost gleeful expression, thin lips twisted into a smirk.

"No House except for Slytherin stands a chance at winning the cup with Snape working against us. He's got no shame! I heard he took points from Ravenclaw for bumping into him accidentally in a crowded hall yesterday! Honestly!"

"Are we alright?" Hermione asked, motioning between the two of them and Harriet. "I'm sorry that we went without you, Harriet."

"Yeah," Ron chimed in, managing to look a bit ashamed. "We should have brought you or not gone at all."

A slow smile broke over Harriet's face. That was twice—once each!—that Hermione and Ron had referred to themselves as _we_. And they'd gone the whole breakfast without bickering. Though somewhere small inside of her still ached, she found that it was easy to push it down deeper and continue smiling.

"It's alright," Harriet said at last. "Ron and I staked out the hallway without you, Hermione, and Hermione and I saw the you-know-what without _you_ , Ron. I think we're all even now."

"From here on, whatever we do, we do together. Promise?" Hermione looked from one of them to the other. They both nodded.

" _Promise_."

"Anyway, just take a look at Malfoy. He's looking just as glum as the rest of us—my guess says he was betting on an expulsion and not just the loss of House Points."

Malfoy's thin, pale face was twisted like the food on his plate disgusted him.

"Really, it's only the first semester! Fred and George set all those tapestries on fire their first year and they weren't expelled. Professor Dumbledore is very understanding," Hermione said, craning out of her seat to get a good look at Malfoy's dismal expression.

"I don't know, Hermione. If McGonagall hadn't stepped in on our behalf—"

"Harriet!" Wood appeared from nowhere, dressed in his Quidditch robes. "Did you forget about practice? Everyone's waiting on you. After all the points we lost last night, Quidditch is the only chance we have at winning the House Cup."

Harriet had forgotten. She glanced down at her Saturday clothes and decided they were comfortable enough for running and flying. She took a bite from her toast, brushed the crumbs from her jumper, gave Ron and Hermione a quick wave, and bounded after Oliver, beaming. Her nightmare the night before seemed a million miles away.

* * *

The next Saturday marked the hallway point of the semester, and as was tradition, the entire staff met in Dumbledore's office for a staff meeting. Severus thought it was a terrible idea, as the same ideas were always repeated every year: the older students could remember nothing from their previous years, and the younger students were hopeless.

Staff meetings were always dull affairs, with Albus showing off his latest dreadful robes/hat combinations and plenty of all-around bitching or yammering.

"I find Hermione Granger to be a very bright student," Flitwick offered after the usual tirade of student ineptitude. "She's a fine addition to Gryffindor House, if I may say so. Lots of personality." Minerva smirked at Severus over her cup of tea, raising an eyebrow in a fashion that was so similar to his own that it made him scowl.

"Very bright—which is why she and her ginger friend cost their own House nearly half-a-hundred points by sneaking around the castle after dark," Severus reminded them all silkily, smirking with mirth at how quickly Minerva's expression darkened.

"How very fortunate that Mr. Malfoy happened to overhear Mr. Weasley's plans to be out after curfew. A little _too_ fortunate, if you ask me—"

"I don't think anyone _did_ ask you, Minerva," Severus added helpfully.

Albus chuckled, adding another spoonful of sugar to his tea. "And Miss Potter? How is she fairing in her classes?"

"Quite well, Headmaster," Sprout said. "She won't be the first of her year—I think Miss Granger will always hold that title—but she's certainly a hard worker."

"And you, Quirinus?" Albus turned his gaze to their quietest member who had been staring off into the fire, dark shadows under his eyes. He seemed startled.

"B-beg pardon, Headmaster?"

"Do you find Miss Potter's work in your class to be satisfactory?"

"She's quite an engaging child," Flitwick butted in.

"Engaging," Quirrell murmured, staring back into the fire. It flickered off of the jewels of his turban. "Yes. Quite."

There was a long moment of silence.

Albus clapped his weathered hands together, gently. "Brilliant, then! I think there are only a few more issues to be discussed—"

"Headmaster?" Vector asked, smiling widely. "Are _we_ dismissed?"

"Yes, I should think so," Albus replied, eyes twinkling merrily. "Except for the Heads of House, who I would please request remain behind."

Severus, who had both hands on the arms of his chair, preparing to vacate as quickly as possible, groaned and retook his seat. There went his dreams of a peaceful Saturday. He strongly suspected that this meeting would be about Potter—wasn't everything in his life always revolving around Lily's daughter? The decanter of Firewhisky he'd left behind in his quarters haunted him. He should have had a few drinks before this meeting. It would have made for an interesting staff discussion.

"What's this about, Headmaster?" McGonagall asked, settling in. Her square spectacles caught the light from the fire. "Lunch has started nearly five minutes ago."

"Unfortunately, I'd like to discuss the decorations for Halloween. I think we should prepare to be late for lunch." He reclined back in his armchair and removed from within a pocket of his robes a thick, badly folded piece of parchment. "I have quite a few ideas…"

Fifteen minutes passed of the most ridiculous suggestions Severus had ever heard come from the Headmaster's mouth (short of asking him to protect the Potter girl—that would always truly take the ridiculous cake), the eyebrows on his head growing higher and higher by the moment. Minerva seemed to be in a state of confused shock.

"Albus, I don't need to tell you the potential repercussions of hiring vampires from the Carpathians to haunt the empty classrooms and niches—"

"It would certainly make things interesting," Severus said.

"—as the students already believe _you_ are a vampire, Severus, I can see why the idea might hold merit for you—"

Flitwick snorted into his tea, something that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. Severus glared and the shorter man seemed to shrink further into his armchair under the wilting gaze.

"I do agree with Minerva, Albus. These suggestions of yours are…quite outlandish. I think the only sensible thing you've suggested is a costume party. Surely you aren't really considering pumpkins who can swallow up the students and hold them hostage inside?"

A thought occurred to Severus. His eyes narrowed. "Yes, old man, why is it you've kept us here with ridiculous suggestions?"

Albus shrugged, smiling. He began to fold up the paper and tuck it back into his robes quickly. "I merely wanted to up our Halloween _ante_ , but I can see perhaps my ideas aren't best suited to a school such as Hogwarts—"

"What's going on?" Severus interrupted, suspicious.

Albus smiled, eyes twinkling. "Nothing at all, Severus. We are merely missing an entertaining feast—but as it happens, I think if the five of us were to arrive before the next five minutes have ended, we would be most unwelcome—"

But Severus and the other teachers were already out of their seats and making their way to the Great Hall. For a moment, Albus was left alone in his office. He steepled his fingers together, lips puckering pensively.

"Well, I don't want to be the only one missing the festivities." Standing, he made his way after them.

* * *

"I've got an important question for you, Potter."

"I'm listening, Fred."

"Australia or Romania in this year's Cup?"

The Quidditch Team had been taking her under their wing to teach her the rules of Quidditch and its history more thoroughly (it wasn't _her_ fault that she didn't know it was wrong to encourage other players to catch the Snitch if it was near them—but apparently that was a Snitchnip, and quite frowned upon). When they weren't discussing the more than seven hundred ways to foul in Quidditch, they were talking about theory, which Harriet enjoyed immensely.

"Australia. I always root for the underdog."

"Spoken like the third Weasley Twin, Potter."

"Wouldn't that make her our triplet, George?"

"Semantics, Fred—"

"Are you sure Hagrid said it was fine that we come for tea this evening? I know you said you spent time with him over the summer, but he doesn't know Ron or myself very well at all," Hermione said, frowning.

"Hagrid is very laid back. I'm sure he wouldn't mind at all—and not to mention Australia does have a fabulous Keeper. That's a point for—"

Ron suddenly spat his orange juice all over the table. Hermione shrieked as her plate had been soaked with it.

"Ronald! _Honestly_!"

Ron was incapable of speech, pointing, mouth agape, at the door of the Great Hall. When they all turned to look, Harriet could suddenly understand exactly why Ron would have had such a reaction.

Professor Snape stood at the entrance clad in the most fabulous set of lavender dress robes any of them had ever seen. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail and he gave a merry wave when everyone looked. The Hall had gone silent with his entrance. He walked to the Staff Table lacking his usual grace—not that Harriet usually noticed his grace—and flopped down in the Headmaster's chair.

"Look—look!" The only sound in the Hall was the whip of hair and robes as every head turned from the Staff Table back to the entrance. Professor Flitwick entered, clad in black, his hair combed down and in his face. He glared fiercely and made his way to the Staff Table as quickly as his little legs would allow, his arms straight out so that his black robes billowed behind him.

"What are you all looking at!" He said, his voice quite low. "Back to your dinners! Ten points to Slytherin!"

Behind him were Dumbledore (smeared in dirt and wearing earthen, brown robes, quite rough and unlike his usual glamorous outfits) and McGonagall (who was quite obviously trying to impersonate Professor Flitwick, as she was walking on her haunches, stooped quite low to the ground). As the two of them passed by Gryffindor Table, Harriet heard a voice unlike Flitwick _or_ McGonagall's hissing:

"Should have taken more bloody time to figure out these fucking costumes—"

Sprout had taken up the rear, clad in rich scarlet robes and a tall, pointed hat, her hair pulled back into a severe bun. It was obvious where McGonagall's spectacles had gone to, as they were perched at the end of the shorter professor's nose.

"What the bloody hell?"

"Bloody brilliant—"

"Flitwick as Snape—I'm going to _die_ , Fred."

The whole Hall burst into speech. Lunches rested abandoned while students refused to take their eyes off of the Staff Table. Gradually, other professors entered, though none of them seemed to find anything wrong with the picture presented.

"Good afternoon, Headmaster!" Professor Vector called. Snape beamed (somewhere behind her, there was a commotion as Neville seemed to swoon with horror) and winked at the young woman, which sent her into guffaws and snorts of laughter.

It became clear that no one was interested in eating anymore, except for the professors who were acting normally, trying to make conversation with their strange coworkers. When Flitwick reached for a gravy mote, Peeves burst from it and showered several Staff members with brown gravy.

"Ohhh, is Peevesy late for the show?" He twirled his little moustache, caught sight of the turban on Quirrell's head and began trying to unravel it while onlookers laughed, though Quirrell didn't seem to find it funny at all.

"Peeves!" McGonagall yelled, throwing her voice hilariously to mimic Flitwick's squeak.

Snape laughed loudly, wiping at his face with his purple robes.

"This is the most disturbing thing that I've ever seen," Ron said mesmerized. "Is Dumbledore flirting with Hagrid?"

"I think it's supposed to be Professor Sprout—though I still don't believe she should be showing such… _romantic_ interest in Hagrid. Look how he's blushing!"

"What do you think did it?" Fred asked George lowly. When it came to any sort of prank, the Weasley Twins could become quite pensive and serious. "Glamours?"

"Polyjuice, dummy. Those Ravenclaws are the only one's capable—and anyway, the Hufflepuffs are planning something else entirely—"

A loud bang brought silence to the Hall. Harriet, who hadn't taken her eyes off of the strange sight Snape made, was able to watch his eyes widen in comical horror before he scrambled out of the Headmaster seat and made a dash for the tapestry by the Staff Table that would lead to the corridor with for the Trophy Room.

Harriet glanced to the entrance to find that Snape—the _real_ Snape—had entered. His fury made her breathless with fear, and she slunk down in her seat as he cast his hateful eyes across the Hall. The other impersonators had already made their escapes. Snape didn't pursue, though he took time to look at each student as if they personally might be responsible.

Dumbledore appeared over his shoulder and put a weathered hand on his shoulder, hiding his smile.

"Lunch is dismissed," Snape said, barely above a whisper. Everyone stood, abandoning their plates, and began to vacate the Hall, giving the furious man a wide berth. Harriet found his anger so impressive that she didn't even try to catch his eyes as she left, though she lingered on the other side of the door to listen in to their conversation, trying to block out the murmur of voices from the other students.

"Was that—?"

"Ravenclaws."

"Hilarious—did you see McGonagall?"

"Did you see Snape?"

"Those dress robes!"

"Albus, every year before the start of the term, I contemplate handing in my resignation. Why must you encourage me by playing along with the insipid fantasies of these children?"

"Now, Severus, we both know you won't be resigning, not now that a certain student has made her arrival."

Harriet held her breath.

"The next time you allow a student to impersonate me, I will resign. Potter or no."

"If the prank has caused harm, then you have my deepest apologies, but if it is only your pride that is hurt—"

But Snape had already whirled away. He came around the corner with the next torrent of students and didn't even cast her hiding place a glance, though she was in plain sight. He looked furious as he began his descent into the dungeons, disappearing with a flicker of black robes. Harriet remembered Flitwick casting his arms out to mimic Snape's signature billow and had to struggle not to laugh.

"Harriet!" Hermione called, waving frantically. Harriet, who had broken away from her friends, made her way back to them. "Tea? With Hagrid? Do you think this qualifies as 'after lunch'? Or should we wait—"

"I think lunch is definitely over," Harriet replied.

#

That was how the three of them ended up taking tea in Hagrid's hut. While it looked quite small on the outside, it was large enough inside to accommodate the half-giant's stature. The tea he served them was bitter, and the cakes he laid out were nearly inedible, but with the pleasant conversation Hagrid was able to provide, no one seemed to mind.

"Is that a dreamcatcher, Hagrid?" Harriet asked, looking at the intricate webbed item in the window.

"Tha' it is. Made o' real spider silk, it is. 've been known t' have a bad dream or two. Very valuable. Take a closer look if y'like."

Harriet did while Hagrid discussed dragons with Ron and Hermione. It was a beautiful dreamcatcher, the only one Harriet had ever seen in person. Colorful feathers dangled from it, and the spider silk looked like thick webbing, glistening from the afternoon light that came in through the window.

Something caught her eye, posted on the wall by the window. A newspaper page from the Daily Prophet was taped there, cut out quite sloppily.

BREAK-IN AT GRINGOTTS: Gringotts' Security Breached

She scanned the article quickly, barely breathing. A vault had been broken into—vault 713. She checked the date only to find that the break-in had occurred shortly after her visit to Gringotts with Professor Dumbledore. Was that the vault that the Headmaster had emptied, or was she getting her numbers mixed up? Maybe it was 731—but that didn't have the ominous sound _seven-thirteen_ did.

Harriet rejoined them at the table and took another bite from one of Hagrid's biscuits, nearly chipping a tooth in the process. Hermione was giving her a very pointed look, and she suddenly remembered why they were there in the first place.

"Hagrid, I wanted to ask you—why is there a three-headed dog in Hogwarts?"

Hagrid, in the middle of pouring Ron more tea, dropped the teapot.

"How do you know about Fluffy?"

"Fluffy? You named a huge three-headed dog _Fluffy_? Now I've heard everything," Ron said, shaking his head with wide eyes.

"Yeah—he's mine—bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las' year—I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the—"

"Yes?" Harried asked eagerly.

Hagrid frowned deeply.

"To guard the stone, right?" Hermione asked, slowly. Harriet gave her a panicked look, but Hermione just wiggled her eyebrows urgently.

"Now how do you know 'bout that? Who've you been talkin' to?"

"Of course we know about the stone—who was it that told us? Oh I can't quite remember, but—"

Hagrid looked hurt. "Is that the only reason why you came t' visit me?"

"What? No!" cried Harriet. "Honest, Hagrid, I've been meaning to visit—"

"It's gettin' dark out," Hagrid said gruffly, ignoring the bright sunshine streaking in through the window. "Perhaps you three best be headed back ter the castle."

"But Hagrid—the stone—"

"Harriet, you best be keeping t' yer own business. You're meddlin' in things that don't concern yeh. It's dangerous. You forget that dog, an' you forget what it's guardin'. That's between Professor Dumbledore an' Nicolas Flamel—" Hagrid seemed to immediately realize his mistake due to the delight on the trio's faces at his slip-up. Mumbling angrily to himself, he shooed the three from his hut and closed the door none-too-gently behind them.

Harriet was torn between excitement at learning another piece of the puzzle and sadness at her treatment of Hagrid.

"Nicolas Flamel—I know I've read his name in _the Book of Stones_! Come on!" Hermione and Ron began the trek back to the castle taking quick, excited steps, but Harriet couldn't seem to move. Inside his hut, she could still hear Hagrid talking to himself. She could just see the dreamcatcher through the window, dulled by the glass. Promising she would make things right, she turned away to bound after her friends.

#

Once again tucked away inside Ron's four poster bed, Hermione laid flat on the coverlet _The Book of Stones: Wizard's Edition_. She flipped through until she found the page she was looking for and read it to them, word for word.

"The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Sorcerer's Stone, a 176 legendary substance with astonishing powers. The stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. There have been many reports of the Sorcerer's Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight)."

The longer she read, the more Harriet and Ron began to resemble incredulous fishes with their mouths agape.

"Hagrid was right—we're in _way_ over our heads," said Ron. "Can you imagine Quirrell being immortal? What's he even want immortality for, anyway? So he can fix his stutter—someday?"

"It can also transform any metal to gold. Imagine an endless supply of Galleons."

"The Dursleys would faint. What are they doing keeping the Stone at Hogwarts? That's just asking for trouble!"

"Adult trouble—trouble where people can get _hurt_ ," Hermione added, looking grave. "People would kill for this Stone. People would _die_ for it."

"Quirrell? A killer? I don't think so."

"We can't underestimate him," said Harriet. "Money—immortality. Men have killed for less, right?"

"And women," Hermione said matter-of-factly.

"Women, too."

"So, what do we do?"

"Well," said Harriet slowly. "I think this qualifies as 'important'. Would you say we're in danger?"

Hermione frowned. "Not necessarily—I mean, no one has threatened us, have they?"

"But _might_ we be in danger—even the slightest bit?"

"I suppose so—"

"Got to go, then!" Harriet called on her way out.

"Where are you going?" Ron called after her, exchanging confused glances with Hermione.

"I've got to write a letter!"

#

Less than an hour later, Harriet stood alone in the owlery. She had chosen an owl with black feathers and a calm temperament, hoping that it wouldn't offend Mr. Prince's sensibilities. She stroke its chest and tied the roll of parchment to one of its thin legs.

"This letter needs to go to Mr. Prince, alright? Do you know where he is?" The owl looked back at her with large, yellow eyes that had an eerie wisdom she couldn't quite place. "I'll take that as a yes. Go on."

It did the strangest thing. Instead of flying out the window and into the evening sky, it turned right around and flew down the owlery stairs, deeper into the castle. Harriet watched with furrowed brows.

"Odd."

She shrugged and headed down to dinner.

* * *

The letter came just after dusk. Everyone else was in the Great Hall eating and enjoying their dinners. In the dark of the dungeons, Severus Snape read for his own leisure. A note on his—warded—door deferred any student to Professor Dumbledore for the remainder of the evening. Severus knew that it was unlikely any student would _really_ go to the Headmaster (they were far more likely to get over whatever had offended them or to deal with the problem on their own), but at least he'd given himself a free evening to not look at students or think of students and perhaps—dare he even think the word?— _relax_.

Just as the thought entered his mind, his peace was shattered by a noise from his door. Had that been a knock? Were the students now incapable of reading? Deciding that whoever he found on the opposite side of his door would receive the worst tongue lashing he was capable of, he opened the door to find the hallway empty.

Glaring into the darkness, something trod on his foot. Kicking it away by instinct, he then came eye to eye with a disgruntled owl. As there were no windows in the dungeons, it most likely had made quite a trip through Hogwarts to find him.

He removed the letter and shut the door in its face without giving it a treat—as if Severus Snape would give any bloody owl a _treat_.

And of-fucking-course it was a letter addressed to Mr. Prince. Hadn't he just told the girl a few weeks ago that he was sick of her sodding letters? It had been blissfully quiet since then. He should have guessed it would be some sort of calm before the storm.

 _Mr. Prince,_

 _Quirrell is after the Sorcerer's Stone. Thought you should know._

 _Harriet_

Had he really thought he could relax? What a pipe dream.

#

 _H: (Dated 24/10/1991)_

 _I thought I told you to mind your own sodding business. The Stone is being protected. Stay away from the third floor corridor and keep out of Quirrell's sight._

#

 _Mr. Prince, (Dated 25/10/1991)_

 _Are you sure that the Stone is being properly protected? Is Quirrell dangerous?_

 _Harriet_

 _#_

 _H: (Dated 25/10/1991)_

 _The Stone is protected by various horrific enchantments—some that would render any first year wandering too far from her cupboard to a boneless lump of human jelly in a sack of skin. To those protecting the Stone, Quirrell isn't dangerous. To an eleven year old, Quirrell is practically the Dark Lord incarnate._

 _Mind your own goddamn bloody business._

 _#_

 _Mr. Prince, (Dated 26/10/1991)_

 _It seems to me that if you were trying to protect the Stone from Quirrell, spells that would render_ adults _into boneless lumps of human jelly in sacks of skin would be more useful._

 _Harriet_

 _#_

If Severus had been a lesser man, he might have rolled his eyes. As it was, he resigned himself not to reply and put the letter away with the others, next to the picture of Lily he couldn't stand to look at—not so close to Halloween.

He rubbed his temples. He'd heard no more news about Quirrell from the Headmaster, nor had he caught the other man lurking around the third floor corridor anymore—that was left to Potter and her ginger/bookworm sidekicks.

But it couldn't hurt to do some digging.

* * *

 **I'm very enthusiastic about this chapter, and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope some others were able to find humor in the things I took humor in. Since I've left you all waiting so long, I thought I would go ahead and give you something else to read. Thanks for the kind favorites and follows.**

 **As it is, I'm currently outlining my plans for the Chamber of Secrets. I'd like it to be fabulously AU, I'm going to leave you with a question:**

 **If anyone had to be the discoverer of the journal and be possessed by Riddle OTHER than Ginny, who would you choose?**

 **As always, comments are very welcome.**


	8. Halloween

**Thanks for the kind reviews, follows, and favorites! Un-betad and Un-British, so have mercy. See you at the end.**

* * *

Halloween

Halloween came every year, no matter how much Severus willed it not to. Albus put out an announcement for a Halloween costume party that would take place in the Great Hall ( _joy_ , Severus thought sarcastically) and the first Quidditch Match of the year drew closer, between Gryffindor and Slytherin. Many nights, he watched Potter come to dinner with windblown red hair, her robes streaked with mud, beaming with reddened cheeks.

 _I'm so sorry, Lily._

He found himself thinking that very sentence often on Halloween (and even throughout the year itself). If he witnessed a striking sunrise, he found himself disgustingly sentimental and thinking of Lily. When was the last sunrise she had watched? Over ten years ago at least, and then never again. When he came across an interesting Charms article in the paper, he found himself thinking of Lily. She'd dedicated her whole young life to fighting against the Dark Lord—fighting against Severus—that she'd never had the chance to explore any career.

Now that her daughter was at Hogwarts, he couldn't help but think of Lily even more often. Every time he saw her child and witnessed the little moments Lily had died for and never been able to see—

 _I'm so sorry, Lily._

Not to mention, the snooping into Quirrell's activities hadn't led to any forthcoming leads or concerns. The man was almost always in his chambers when he wasn't in the classroom, but he never missed a meal. It had crossed Severus's mind to use Legilimency on him—but the other man would never meet his eyes, not even across a crowded room.

It was shaping up to be a miserable winter, but Severus had expected no different.

* * *

The announcement for the Halloween costume party was posted on the bulletin board in the Common Room. Hermione, Ron, and Harriet had to elbow fellow Gryffindors aside to make it to the front of the crowd to read it.

YOU'RE INVITED!

(Years 3rd through 7th)

TO A SPOOKTACULAR

COSTUME PARTY!

It was complete with little skeletons that danced and dig jigs, even when their limbs fell off, in which case the limbs joined the festivities on their own.

"No First or Second Years? That's—that's discriminatory! Right, Hermione? Did I use that word properly?"

"You did," she admitted. "Though it _does_ make sense. First years can't very well go to Hogsmeade for any costumes, can they?"

"Not to mention eleven year olds aren't conductive for a party atmosphere," George chimed in, nudging Harriet aside to scratch a tentative fingernail at one lackadaisical skeleton on the flyer. It renewed its dance with twice the enthusiasm.

"I say they shouldn't let anyone below fifth year in. Why should the older students have to babysit?" Oliver Wood said under his breath from behind them.

"Oi!"

"Bloody offensive, that's what that is!"

"Don't take it personally," Wood said. "You're thirteen. What kind of fun can thirteen year olds have? Potter—if you want Halloween off from Quidditch practice, we'd all understand."

Harriet stared blankly, rubbing at her forehead where a headache seemed to be forming. Behind her, the twins leaned their heads together and began to mutter quiet schemes for the upcoming party. "Why would I want Halloween off? The match against Slytherin is coming up, and I need practice more than anyone."

Wood looked impressed. He clapped her on the shoulder, hard. "That's the spirit, Potter! Those snakes don't stand a chance. See you there."

He pushed his way through the crowd, shouting for Angelina who he had just spotted coming down from the girl's dormitory. Harriet gestured a hand towards Wood and exchanged incredulous looks with Ron.

"What's that all about? Oliver asked Alicia to come to practice even after that Transfiguration accident when she had buttons for eyes—why would he give _me_ a day off?"

Ron and Hermione looked distinctly uncomfortable.

"Perhaps he thought you'd prefer it that way, is all," Hermione said carefully. Harriet scowled.

"You've _all_ gone barmy. We're going to be late for Herbology if we don't get a move on," Harriet muttered, slinging her bag over her shoulder and headed for the door. She didn't bother to see if her friends were following, but if she had, she might have seen the look exchanged between Ron and Hermione.

"Doesn't she—?"

"She's in denial. Best not to mention it unless she does."

Ron nodded. "Right. Don't mention it. I can do that."

#

Harriet spent the entire day in a foul mood. Her headache only became worse, and she often found herself with that strange sense of déjà vu that had plagued her earlier in the year. It became so strong that she was sometimes convinced she had double vision. For a moment in Transfiguration, McGonagall looked decades younger, with darker hair and less wrinkles. When Harriet blinked hard, McGonagall was staring at her with a stern expression like the girl had nodded off. Harriet had looked down at her empty page of notes to avoid the older woman's severe gaze.

"Maybe you should go to Madam Pomfrey to get something for your headache. You have a free period since Defense Against the Dark Arts was cancelled." They were in the Great Hall and Harriet was in so much pain she could barely stand to look at her plate. The food there made her nauseous. Her eyes were red and bloodshot from having been rubbed so much, and her headache only seemed to be getting worse.

"Figures a time like Halloween would make Quirrell cancel all of his classes. I'll bet he's hiding in his chambers scared to open the door. Go on, Harriet. Hermione's right—you really don't look well."

" _Thanks_ ," Harriet said through gritted teeth. She pushed her plate away and stormed off, immediately feeling guilty as she remembered the confused expressions on Ron and Hermione's faces. She groaned. It wasn't her fault she'd awoken in such a foul mood—her dreams last night had been horrible. She'd run out of the Dreamless Sleep Madam Pomfrey had given her earlier in the year and—until now—hadn't had need for it. Maybe she _would_ visit the older mediwitch.

But that turned out to be a foul idea as well. Madam Pomfrey just stared at her with a pitying expression as she explained her symptoms, nodding sympathetically. She returned with several vials.

"Something there for your headache. Also, more Dreamless Sleep, and a strong Calming Draught. Would you like me to write you a note to give you the rest of the afternoon off?"

Harriet gaped. "No! It's just a headache—"

"If you need to talk to someone, Harriet—"

She jerked the potions away from the older witch's hands and tucked them into her bag and called out as she was leaving: "I don't need to talk!"

In the corridor outside of the hospital wing, she swallowed one of the potions to help her headache. It did ease somewhat, but she was in no hurry to return to her friends. With no class until Charms later in the day, she decided to wander the hall in search of a place to be alone. Perhaps she could find a nice dark niche in a corridor and take a nap.

With her luck, it was only natural that she would run nearly headfirst into Professor Snape while rounding a corner. She jerked away from him like she'd been burned. For a moment, he was a younger man—still greasy and hook-nosed, but with a youthful smirk and not so many frown lines. Harriet groaned and pressed her hands against her eyes, lashes flickering under her palms. Judging by the black look on his face, Snape seemed to be in one of the foulest moods that she had ever witnessed.

"Potter—whatever sentient creature which burdened us with this life as we know it _also_ saw fit to give you _eyes_. Quit trying to pop them back into your skull and use them to watch where you walk. Now remove yourself as far from my vicinity as physically possible whilst still remaining within school boundaries." Snape never ran out of breath when he was saying something mean.

"I'm sorry," she said, suddenly ashamed that her eyes were filling with tears. She pressed against her eyes harder, hoping her palms would obscure her shame and any glimpses of Snape's bitter anger. "My head hurts. I can't see well."

"That's not my bloody problem," he said, stepping around her. "Ten points from Gryffindor. If I want to hear your excuses, I'll ask for them on twelve inches of parchment."

Furious, Harriet wrenched her hands away from her face to look into his fathomless eyes. Her face was wet with tears, eyes red and puffy.

"I said that I was _sorry_ , Professor."

His eyes narrowed and his arms crossed. Harriet saw that he had a vial in one hand that he seemed to be delivering to the Hospital Wing. The air in the corridor chilled just with his expression and Harriet shivered. Professor Snape could be much more frightening than Uncle Vernon. "Ten more points from Gryffindor for your cheek, and detention—Saturday at six. Now _get out of my sight_."

Harriet turned on her heel and did as she was told. It took her half the trip back to Gryffindor Tower for her tears to stop, but her embarrassment still stung like one of the bees in Aunt Petunia's garden. She snarled the password ( _Caput Draconis_ ) at the Fat Lady and let the portrait slam behind her. She didn't stop until she was in her dormitory, under the covers of her four poster bed. With the curtains drawn, there was no light. She could pretend that she'd never run into Professor Snape in the first place.

Harriet allowed one long breath to escape her.

The curtain rippled.

"Harriet," a woman whispered. She shuddered, sitting up. There was someone just outside her bed, but there had been no one in the dormitory when she'd arrived.

"Hello?" Harriet whispered.

"Harriet," the voice replied. "Mummy loves you _so_ much, Harriet."

She tore open the curtains and cried out as her hand collided with wood. Bars surrounded her bed—she was in a crib. The Gryffindor dormitory was gone, and instead there was a room very much like a nursery with soft pastel walls. Kneeling in front of the bars, fingers creeping through to wiggle at Harriet, was a woman she'd never seen before but had also seen every time she looked in the mirror.

The door burst open and a man stood there, tall, thin, with dark hair and eyes that seemed to glow red in the darkness. Then, Harriet _was_ the man, looking down at her mother, telling her to step aside. Behind her in the crib rested a red-headed toddler, crying. The voice that came from Harriet's throat was high but masculine and filled with an ironic, humored malevolence. She raised her wand and from it burst a flash of green light. Lily collapsed, emerald eyes vacant.

Harriet's gaze turned on her younger self. She was stalking closer, staring down into the crib.

"Harriet," the voice, _her_ voice, whispered. "Harriet."

Harriet awoke, shuddering in the darkness. Someone had drawn back her curtains—Hermione. Bast was curled up at her feet, yellow eyes watching her owner shrewdly. Behind Hermione, the dormitory was empty, the light slanting through the windows letting Harriet know that it was much later than when she had first laid down to rest.

"You missed the rest of classes," Hermione said quietly. "Are you feeling any better?"

Harriet shook her head.

"You were having a bad dream. Do you want to talk about it?"

Harriet shook her head again, a hand clasping over her mouth. Her chest caught and shivered with great, quiet sobs. Hermione crawled into the bed and drew the curtains around them until just the darkness prevailed. Her hand grabbed Harriet's free hand in the darkness, fingers warm. She squeezed and didn't let go.

#

Saturday morning dawned cold and rainy. She had been awoken by Hermione's hair, wild from sleep, tickling her face as the other girl moved away. Harriet's stomach growled fiercely since she'd barely eaten the day before. She shut her eyes against the grey light coming through the windows. Her headache had returned with a vengeance. Fumbling around with her eyes closed, she found another potion Madam Pomfrey had given her and drank it all.

"Does your head still hurt?" Hermione whispered. As it was Saturday, the other girls in the dormitory were still asleep, Lavender snoring noisily.

 _What does it look like?_ She thought, rubbing at her forehead. She sighed silently.

"Yes," Harriet replied as kindly as she could. It wasn't Hermione's fault that her head hurt worse than the time Uncle Vernon had banged a frying pan against her crown. "But the potion is helping."

"Should we dress and go down for breakfast? More than likely, we'll be the first ones there."

Harriet's stomach growled in assent for her. Hermione took her clothes to the loo while Harriet drew the curtains around her bed to change. She wouldn't risk having Lav or Pavarti wake up and catch her nearly naked.

Combing her fingers through her hair to try and get rid of the tangles, the redhead went out of the dormitory to linger in front of the fire in the Common Room which had stoked itself alive at dawn. The cold had always bothered Harriet more than it seemed to bother her relatives—especially Uncle Vernon and Dudley, who had enough natural padding to keep them comfortable—and she longed for the weather to turn warm again so that she, Hermione, and Ron could do their homework on a blanket laid out on the front lawn of the school the way they had in early September.

Harriet held out her cold hands close to the flames, but couldn't seem to warm them. The chill ran deep inside of her today. She'd chosen her warmest black jumper, but there was a spot in her chest that felt cold and still.

 _Today is going to be a very bad day,_ Harriet thought to herself instinctively.

"Ready?" Hermione breathed, bounding from the dormitory staircase and into the Common Room. Her hair had been brushed to no avail, as it seemed bushier than ever. Harriet gave a weak smile.

Hermione had been right that they would be the first to breakfast. The only other person present was Professor Vector, who neither Hermione nor Harriet had ever had in any class. The woman gave them a polite nod before returning to her magazine and taking a deep drink from a steaming mug.

"Hot chocolate?" Hermione asked out loud. It appeared in her cup, warm and fragrant. Behind them, another Gryffindor entered—Wood, dressed in his Quidditch gear. Tucked under his arm was a notebook he wrote all of his strategies in. He took a seat further down and began to flip through it, distracted.

"I have Quidditch today," Harriet remembered faintly. Hermione frowned.

"I thought Oliver excused you."

"No one gets excused from Quidditch," she said, sharper than she had intended.

Hermione nodded. "Right. I must have misunderstood."

Afraid that her reply wouldn't be kindly, Harriet focused on her plate, asking for some toast and jam. When it appeared, she took lackluster bites from it, staring at a far window to watch the rain fall. She was still staring when Ron appeared ten minutes later and did not see the concerned look he exchanged with Hermione.

When Ron went to open his mouth, Hermione shook her head sharply. Harriet could barely be bothered to take notice even when the Hall had filled and did not move a muscle until a person wiggled between her and Ron, throwing an arm over each of their shoulders.

"My favorite Firsties," Fred said. "I've come bearing gifts."

"Gifts?" Ron asked through a mouthful of eggs. "What kind of gifts?"

"Costumes," George replied in a whisper, sitting on the other side of Ron. Everyone leaned forward to listen. "For the party tonight. Jordan helped sneak us into Hogsmeade. We brought enough for you all as well, as long as you promise to keep away from the punch."

One twin leaned over to flick the other in the ear. "You're giving too much away, George."

"Mum would _kill_ us, Fred."

"Why should we stay away from the punch?" Harriet asked.

"It won't be fit for Firsties, that's why. Are you three in or out?"

" _In_!" Ron said before Hermione could utter a word. "What kind of costumes have you got? They'd better be brilliant."

#

The costumes turned out to be three masks. The five of them ended up in a corner of the Common Room in the early evening. Harriet was sulking in an armchair after Wood had thrown her out of Quidditch practice for missing seven out of ten golf balls he'd chucked up to her from the field. "Nobody blames you, Harriet," he'd said while studiously looking at anything but her. "Just take the rest of the day off like I told you to."

Back in her dormitory, Harriet had drunk the last vial for her headache and taken some sips from the calming draught as well. It made her feel distant from things, like she were watching her life as a movie on the telly or standing outside a window looking in.

Fred and George, with their enthusiasm, made up for Harriet's lackluster presence. Their costumes were matching silvery beards of outrageous length and silver spectacles. Each had a set of robes charmed to a shimmery purple.

"Where'd you get the money for _those_?" Ron asked sullenly, holding up a mask of a boar—tusks included. "I know mum couldn't afford anything like that."

"Won some sickles off of a group of Firsties—magnetized Gobstones are the future, brother!—and Angelina bewitched the robes. Frugality is our middle name, after all."

"Your middle name is Gideon, Fred."

"That's _your_ middle name, George."

"Is it? Sometimes I get the two of us confused—"

"This is a _terrible_ idea," Hermione muttered, holding her mask between her hands. It was a grey cat—Hermione had refused the tail.

"It's a brilliant idea," Ron insisted. "Weren't we just complaining about not being able to attend the party? Now Fred and George have gone out of their way and spent their own money—"

"Money they stole from First Year students," Hermione said, rolling her eyes.

"Oi—we worked hard for ever sickle—"

Hermione scoffed and turned to look at Harriet, whose mask was a brown mouse. It had funnel-like, blush colored ears and whiskers that twitched when she spoke. Harriet had put it on right away, enjoying the odd apathetic sensation it gave her to watch her friends through the round eyeholes. "Harriet? What do _you_ think?"

Not often in her life had anyone asked Harriet such a question—as a matter of fact, this seemed to be the first time. Her heart seemed to flutter distantly. She should tell Hermione what the other girl wanted to hear, but hadn't she asked for Harriet's opinion?

"I think it could be fun," Harriet said, quiet as her mask's namesake. "It will be better than sitting alone in Gryffindor Tower all night."

Fred, George, and Ron waited with bated breath for Hermione's reaction. The girl looked torn, eyebrows drawn low and lip between her teeth. Finally, her shoulders sagged and she gave in.

"Oh alright," she consented. She gave Harriet a weak smile and tugged the mask over her face. "How do I look?"

"Brilliant."

#

The party officially started at five in the evening. By that time, dusk had settled over the castle. The Great Hall, which had been filled with decorations at each of the day's meals, was truly decked out and splendid. Pumpkins floated above their heads, jagged mouths glowing from the candles inside of them. Bewitched bats circled the ceiling, swooping dangerously low to their heads. A thin fog crept along their ankles, disguising the stone floor, and a band (the people costumed to look like skeletons) played where the Staff Table used to rest. There were various treats decorated to look like disgusting human and animal body parts or blobs of glowing slime.

"Punch?" Dumbledore-Fred muttered to Dumbledore-George.

"There. Flitwick is guarding it."

"Distraction," both Dumbledores said together, creeping off and leaving the trio to themselves.

"This is _amazing_ ," said Ron behind his mask. Even Hermione looked grudgingly impressed. No one seemed to pay them any attention as there was so much commotion—students in costume dancing or rushing this-way-or-that-way with cups of punch or candies shaped like eyeballs. Even Harriet found she could enjoy the sights and sounds and smells.

"Is that Seamus?" Ron asked, pointing to a shrouded figure across the room. He disappeared into the crowd to investigate, and then it was the two girls alone.

"Should we dance?" Hermione asked, breathlessly. "This is the first party I've ever been to. We shouldn't waste it, should we?"

"I don't know how to dance," Harriet admitted.

"We're the top of our class," Hermione said even though _she_ was the top of their class. "I'm sure we can figure it out!"

Hand in hand they made their way into the mass of dancing students. The two girls copied the less embarrassing movements—what was the use of wiggling their hips so much? All it did was throw Harriet off balance and she found she much preferred to just sway happily or move her arms along to the beat.

When a slow song came on ("Really! It's a Halloween dance!" Hermione said, rolling her eyes) they came off of the dance floor to find Ron and Seamus standing by the punch. They handed the girls each a cup. Harriet's was full nearly to the brim.

"I don't know what Fred and George were talking about," Ron said. "This is my second cup and it's the best punch I've ever had!"

"Is that you Potter?" Seamus asked, squinting through the holes of her mask. His costume consisted of nothing but a poorly drawn beard and moustache that was a shade too light for his natural hair color. "What were you and Granger doing out on the dancefloor? Having seizures?"

"At least we had each other to dance with," Hermione snapped. Harriet took a deep drink of her punch and Ron was right—it was fruity and tangy and tasted faintly of orange juice. Hermione made a face. "This tastes funny."

"What?" Ron said, looking into his cup. "Does not!"

"Does too. You shouldn't drink anymore, we don't know what your brothers did to it—"

"You aren't the boss of us, Granger," Seamus said.

"That's a good point!" Ron said, looking as though he had just stumbled upon such a thought himself. "You aren't the boss of us."

Glaring, she turned to Harriet. "You as well? Or are you going to listen to reason?"

"I can't taste anything Hermione," Harriet said. Her cup was nearly empty already anyway. She finished the rest of it and set the cup aside.

"I won't have any more though. Fred and George really were being very suspicious about it."

" _Thank_ you!" Hermione cried. "I heard that the Professors turned the trophy room and beyond into haunted corridors. That sounds like fun, doesn't it? Shall we investigate?"

"Coming along?" Harriet asked Ron and Seamus. A light feeling had come over her and the cold spot in her chest had nearly thawed away.

But the 'Haunted Corridor' turned out to be as frightening as Helga Hufflepuff. Bored with fake cobwebs and dancing skeletons, the four of them made their way back into the Great Hall, narrowly dodging Professor Sprout who was dressed as a Venomous Tentacula by ducking into a little enclosure behind a tapestry (where it turned out that a Seventh Year disguised as a Chuddly Cannons beater and a Sixth Year wearing a disgustingly creepy spider costume were snogging). They were as hurried to exist that niche as they were to slip into in the first place and they ran straight into Dumbledore.

"Fred!" cried Ron. "You're my favorite brother!"

"Been in the punch, hasn't he?" Dumbledore-Fred asked, shoving off Ron's sloppy arms. "I warned him. Come on, Ron. Your party is over."

"What?" Ron roared. "It's barely six!"

Hermione, Harriet, and Seamus laughed as Ron was dragged away by Dumbledore-Fred, shouting indignities all the way. Ron's interactions with his brother were _hilarious_ , and none of them could seem to stop laughing except for Hermione who was shaking her head as if to say _I told you so_. It wasn't until after they had disappeared from the Great Hall that Harriet realized exactly what Ron had said.

"Six!" Harriet shouted suddenly, feeling a little light-headed. "I've got somewhere to be!" Grabbing another cup of punch from the table as she passed, she started for the door. Over the music, she couldn't hear Hermione's cries for her to come back or explain, but Harriet wouldn't have stopped even if she did. She was going to be _very_ late.

* * *

It was the one night a year that he took out Lily's picture. Most often, he was staring at the empty frame—Lily had hated him when the picture was taken and usually disappeared, refusing to acknowledge him—but sometimes she would stand her ground and glare at him with her _eyes_ and her flushed face and lips thinned with fury. He didn't know which occasions he hated more.

 _This_ is why Snape could not quit his job and spend the rest of his life in the countryside. _This_ is why he could not become a hermit and write articles for potions journals until he died. He had suffered from selfishness as a youth and it had cost him the life of the only person he'd ever loved—except for maybe his mother. While he was sitting in his office, Lily was dead. _Dead_. He sat her picture down with trembling fingers and pressed his face into his hands. He would not fail Lily now—never again.

Most days of the year, Severus was able to Occlude away his self-deprecating thoughts, but this was the one time of the year where he allowed himself to face exactly what he was and exactly what he had done. The tension between his parents. His mother's death. His lack of social success in school. His fallout with Lily. Lily's death. On this evening, all of his failings seemed to come to a crux and rest on his shoulders until his spine curved with the weight.

His only chance at redemption rested with the girl more than seven floors up, more than likely eating the dinner served to First through Third years in their Common Rooms. The girl with a penchant for sleeping in broom closets and hiding behind tapestries. The girl who he could barely look at on his worst days and who he struggled to show basic kindness to.

It seemed like once again he was doomed to fail.

A chime went off—the signal that someone was at his classroom door after hours. He groaned. Pushing himself up from his desk chair wasn't the most difficult thing he had ever done, but it felt like it came close. _Duty_ , he thought to himself. _This is my duty._

But he didn't know how right he was in that fact until he opened his classroom door to find Harriet Potter standing just beyond it.

"Hello Professor. I'm here for my detention." And then she promptly bent at the waist and vomited.

#

"Can't you help me?" She asked, vomiting into a basin he had conjured for her. She held her red, tangled hair in a clumsy fist, but Severus wasn't going to offer any assistance with such things. He wanted her to suffer. "Isn't there a spell or a potion that will make me feel better?"

"I don't make potions to sober eleven year old degenerate rule-breakers, and you'll say _sir_ or _professor_ when you address me. Drink!" He felt lost with fury, clutching at the arms of his chair with a frightening grip. The stupidity of this child—the nerve of her!

She obediently picked up the cup of water next to her and took several long gulps.

"I thought it was punch, professor," she groaned. Her stomach rolled with the effort it took to speak, and she spat up all of the water she had just drank.

" _Drink_. And if you have any sense of self-preservation, you will _stop speaking_." He was going to explode. His wrath felt like a tangible heat behind his breastbone eating away at his insides. Someone would pay for this—the girl, of course, but also whoever had thought to serve a massive group of underage students alcohol. He grinned nastily at the thought of the punishment that would await them and the teacher who had failed to guard the food and drink properly. Perhaps he would be allowed to watch.

Sniffling, Potter drank. He looked away from her obvious misery. He'd never seen Lily look so upset. She'd always had an air of apathy around her, a detachment that was enviable at best and infuriating at worst.

 _Don't think of_ her _. Put her away._

It took several long moments punctuated by the girl's retching to put Lily and all of his guilt into the back of his mind.

"Am I going to have more detention?" she asked, looking at him with red, tearful eyes.

"Weeks more," Severus replied cruely. "Starting _next_ Saturday, like how was meant."

"But you just said Saturday at six, sir," she said.

"How could you think I meant this Saturday of all Saturdays?" He snapped.

"I didn't know that you celebrated Halloween, sir."

He took a deep breath in through his clenched teeth to compose himself and forced himself to stare at her blankly. "Why are you being so dense, Miss Potter?"

She stared back confused, lips very red and cheeks flushed from alcohol and exertion. "I don't know what you mean, professor."

"I would not expect you to serve a detention on _this_ day."

She groaned loudly, putting her head down towards the basin and letting her hair slip free from her hand to fall around her face. "Not you too."

"Potter, desist with the dramatics," he snapped. "And if you _must_ speak, speak plainly."

"First Oliver gave me Halloween off—then Hermione and Ron—and all my teachers today giving me these _looks_ —and Madam Pomfrey—everyone is treating me like some kind of freak or something and I don't understand!"

There was silence as realization dawned over him.

"You don't know what today is," Severus said.

"It's Halloween, Professor," she said, sounding suddenly very drained and tired. "I don't know what else it's supposed to be."

"Kit!" He snapped. With a pop, a House Elf appeared, bowing low, with crooked ears and yellow tennis-ball eyes.

"Professor Snape calls for Kit?"

"Tea for Miss Potter, and the Daily Prophet from tomorrow's date in 1981. Visit Madam Pince's archives, if you must, but don't tell her what they are for. That will be all." At his curt dismissal, the elf disappeared with another snap of its fingers.

 _Detached_ _,_ he thought to himself. _I must be detached._

He waved his hand and the fire in the grate grew and warmed the room. Lily's daughter was watching him with a furrowed brow, frowning deeply. He saw the irony that this duty would also fall to him. He had killed her mother and father and he would have to be the one to tell her the significance of this day.

Lowering himself into his chair, he rubbed at his temple with a long-fingered hand. "Miss Potter. October 31st in 1981 is one of the most infamous dates in modern Wizarding history."

She didn't speak. There was a sort of understanding and acceptance coming over her face. She shook her head.

"Denial becomes no one. Do you mean to tell me that you _truly_ don't know today's importance?"

She shook her head again.

"Your aunt and uncle—they never told you." Of-fucking-course. Speaking it aloud, he knew it to be true. Not for the first time, he was overcome with such loathing for Petunia and the fat Muggle she had married that he longed for their painful and slow demises. Lily rolled in her grave at the treatment of her daughter. _You didn't speak to Lily for ages before her death, how could you make such assumptions?_

The girl was sick again and crying, neither condition which helped the other. When she was finished, she staggered to her feet and came to his desk where the newspaper rested. HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED DEFEATED! was the title, and the image was the destroyed Potter home at Godric's Hollow. She picked up the paper with trembling hands, lips pressed together into a thin white line.

She turned back to her basin and was sick again and for the final time. He said nothing and let her retch in piece. He would not have known what to say to her even if he'd wanted to speak. When she was finished, the girl stood, swaying heavily, and lurched for the door with sudden sobriety.

"Potter," he said sharply.

"Got to go," she mumbled, throwing the door open.

He stood and chased after her. One of the inserts of the paper fell loose and fluttered behind her while she ran with surprising strength and steadiness (most likely a skill honed from plenty of running from her doltish, abusive family)—but Severus's legs were twice as long. He came within sight of her easily the next floor up and was about to overtake her when she ducked into the Great Hall.

Severus cursed and through open the doors. Inside, it was dark and crowded. Her red hair would appear darker in the dim light, and therefore he could not use that feature to find her. She was so short that she would stand a head below her own class, not to mention the Third Years and more who were all getting in his bloody way.

He spotted Albus's purple pointed hat and silvered beard in the darkness and turned him around with a frantic hand on the shoulder. As soon as he touched him, Severus knew this was not the _real_ Dumbledore—this was a child, youthful and thin. A freckled face stared at him in shock.

"Weasley," he snarled, pushing the child away. There was another Albus across the room which he suspected was the other Weasley twin. No, Dumbledore would be in costume, which would make the old coot much more difficult to find. What was the codger's costume? Surely he'd gone on about it in Severus's presence, but his mind remained steadfastly blank. Curse himself and his own ability at blocking out nonsense that was detrimental to his sanity.

He'd have to find the girl on his own.

A child bumped into him from behind.

"Sorry," she mumbled, and he grabbed ahold of her shoulders, wrenching the mask from her face.

"Granger," he said. "Where's Potter?"

The girl looked terrified, her horror made comical by the dramatic lighting and music. "Professor! I—I know First Years aren't s-supposed to be—"

" _Listen to me_ ," he said, bringing their faces so close his nose nearly touched her own. Her eyes crossed to watch him, face blanched white. "Where is Potter?"

"I don't know sir, she left some time ago—said she had somewhere to be—"

"Useless," he snarled pushing her away.

He circled through the crowd again, dark eyes looking for the girl or Albus. He at last stumbled upon the old man leaning against a giant pumpkin. He was covered in strange familiar silver armor and face paint, an ax in one hand. He was gesticulated to Minerva who wasn't in any sort of costume that Severus could see.

"You old bloody fool," Severus shouted to be heard over the music.

"Severus, you said you weren't chaperoning this evening—"

"I'm not bloody chaperoning and I'm still managing to do a better job than you halfwits—the punch is alcoholic and Potter has run off."

" _What_?" McGonagall said. Her lips thinned. "Alcohol—Potter—"

"Your auditory skills are astounding," he snarled. "End this fiasco. _Now_."

"I'll stop the band," McGonagall said, pushing through the students towards the stage.

Albus leaned in, face serious, to ask: "What did you say about Miss Potter running off?"

* * *

Harriet was in a dark room that was difficult to recognize with her head spinning the way it was. Tears obscured her vision and she couldn't seem to blink them away. Why had no one _told_ her? Not Aunt Petunia, not Uncle Vernon, not any of her friends who had treated her funny for days. How could you let your own friend go on traipsing around the castle like it wasn't the anniversary of her parents' brutal murders?

She sat down heavily on the cobblestone floor clutching the newspaper in her hand. Burned in her mind was the image of the destroyed house. She had lived there once—long ago, before she could remember. Her mother and father and her. A family, in a pretty, average house.

Not for the first time, she hated Voldemort and what he had done to her parents. Of all the members in the resistance that Professor Dumbledore had spoken of, why was it her family that he killed? Why couldn't it have been someone— _anyone_ —else? She hoped that if he wasn't dead already, Voldemort never thought to come around her again. Harriet would finish him off herself!

She snorted through her tears. Right. Harriet Potter, Cupboard-Tenant-Extraordinaire. Harriet Potter, who was the shortest and skinniest girl in her whole class.

Something in the distance stirred: a hard-soled shoe on cobblestone. She sniffed loudly and listened. No more sound. When her tears cleared, she realized she was in the 'Haunted Corridor', only it was completely vacant.

"Hello?" She called, her voice thick with tears. She cleared her throat. "I said, Hello?"

Squinting through the dark, a man appeared. His image was smoky but strangely familiar. It made her eyes tear and head throb. The sight of him sent a chill up her spine and her eyes widened, trying to see clearer in the darkness. The shape of the man's head was…strange—

"Harriet Potter," he said, and it was his voice that she finally recognized.

She drew in a lungful of air and screamed, scrambling for the door, though she didn't know precisely where that was.

" _Petrificus Totalus!"_ Harriet felt her body become stiff like stone. Her awkward position caused her to fall forward where she struck the cobblestone face first. Her nose burst with pain and blood flooded her nostrils. She was panicking, her mind moving a million different directions. _I'm going to die. It's the day of my parents' deaths and now I'm going to die too._

The man stood above her. Harriet could feel his presence and her skull and scar throbbed with agony. Tears fell down her cheeks and pooled with the blood on the floor. She couldn't draw breaths and her head swam. She felt the tip of a wand press against the back of her skull, tangling in her red hair.

Just beyond her, a door opened and a girl stood there, shouting Harriet's name.

 _Hermione,_ she thought. _Hermione run or you'll die too, run—run._

The wand was gone but Harriet was slipping away. She felt small hands turning her over and saw Hermione's pale face above hers and it was the last sight she saw.

#

There was no gentle sensation of waking. She jerked into consciousness with Madam Pomfrey's face above her own instead of Hermione's. Harriet tried to screech but her throat was raw and lungs burned. The matronly woman rested her wand on the girl's breastbone and her lungs seemed to fill with cool air which gave her some relief.

"Don't speak, Miss Potter. You've suffered trauma but you are safe now. Close your eyes—"

But Harriet was already following those orders and falling asleep again. When she awoke next, there was light streaming through the window displaying the familiar cots of the Hospital Wing. Hushed voices brought her attention to Professors Dumbledore and Snape who were maintaining a quiet conversation despite Snape's heated expression.

When she turned her head, she saw sitting on the nightstand the newspaper from October 1981. She closed her eyes and turned away. Her head throbbed and her mouth felt like something had crawled inside it to die. The rustle of her head against the pillowcase must have been loud enough for the professors to hear, as their conversation stopped.

"Miss Potter. How are you feeling?" Professor Dumbledore asked, gently lowering himself into the seat at her bedside. Professor Snape had not moved towards her but was watching shrewdly.

"Okay," Harriet lied. Her voice was scratchy.

"I must ask you about the terrible assault on your person which took place last night."

Last night? Had so much time passed?

"It was a man—I never saw his face."

"My child, if you did not see his face, how do you know it was a man?" he asked gently.

"I've dreamed of him," Harriet replied immediately. "I hear his voice. It's a man."

This seemed to trouble Dumbledore greatly. Several long moments were spent with him staring at her carefully, thoughtful. When he spoke, he spoke slowly: "Start at the beginning then, my dear. It is my understanding that you attended the Halloween party the previous evening?"

Shamed, Harriet nodded. "Yes, professor. I'm sorry."

"I think there are more important matters," he said smiling faintly. "Please continue."

"I went to the party. I had some punch."

"Yes, from what I hear, the punch was rather special. Madam Pomfrey dealt with a few dozen overzealous punch-drinkers in the aftermath of our celebration."

"I didn't know what was wrong with it, professor, or I wouldn't have had any. I got upset. I was thinking of my family, so I went into the corridor that the professors had decorated—The Haunted One. I thought I was alone but there was suddenly a man there. He was the man from my dreams, and he cursed me. I don't remember much after that."

Professor Dumbledore nodded. "That is the story I was relayed. Miss Granger—"

"Hermione," Harriet breathed, suddenly remembering the presence of her closest friend. "Is she alright? Did she get hurt?"

"Not at all my dear. It seems her presence startled your attacker. When Professor Snape and I arrived on the scene, you and Miss Granger were alone."

Harriet shuddered. That meant that somewhere in the castle was the man with the strange head and the high, thin voice—that voice—there was something…

"Voldemort," she said, suddenly. "Voldemort."

Professor Snape gave a violent twitch and even Professor Dumbledore seemed startled. Snape's eyes seemed to burn into Dumbledore, but the older wizard wouldn't look away from her.

"Yes, child? What about him?"

Harriet shook her head, suddenly feeling lost the way a person felt when entering a room and suddenly forgetting what it was they had business there doing in the first place.

"I'm sorry, Professor. I think I'm tired."

"Of course. I will let you sleep. Professor Snape has kindly volunteered to watch over you while you rest. Please know that we plan to take every precaution necessary to ensure your safety and the safety of your classmates."

She smiled weakly. No one had ever protected her before—except for Mr. Prince. "Thank you, professor."

With a last kind smile, Professor Dumbledore left, sharing one more meaningful look with Professor Snape. Being alone with him made Harriet nervous—she didn't remember much from her detention but she did remember there was plenty of vomiting involved. She shuddered in embarrassment and could feel her face growing redder.

"Miss Potter," Professor Snape greeted apathetically, choosing to sit in the chair Professor Dumbledore vacated. He crossed his arms over his narrow chest and stared at her blankly. "If you are ever in my vicinity as intoxicated on illegal substances as you were last night, I will personally see that the outdated, medieval punishments Filch advocates for are used to discipline you. Copiously."

"Yessir," she said, though she hadn't understood what some of the words in his sentence had meant.

"You've suffered head trauma. Madam Pomfrey insists that you take the vial on your nightstand. It will make you sleep while you mend." The rigidity in his voice left no room for argument, but after what she had put him through the night before, Harriet planned to do whatever Professor Snape said from that moment on. As soon as the vial was emptied, Harriet felt distant and sleepy.

"'m sorry about last night, profess'r," Harriet said.

"I'm uninterested," Snape replied, staring resolutely at the curtain separating Harriet's bed from the next. It was a strangely surreal experience, sitting in the hospital wing with Professor Snape watching over her.

"My aunt an' uncle never talked about my parents. I don't even know what they look like." She was speaking without her own consent, words dripping from her mouth like drool while she slept.

Professor Snape gave no indication that she'd even spoken. His face remained like stone. Perhaps she was already dreaming. Harriet closed her eyes and slept once more.

* * *

 **RIP Alan Rickman. I was devastated to hear the news. I hope you found something in this chapter that you've enjoyed. I took liberties. I believe Halloween of 1991 fell on a Thursday and not a Saturday. Will you forgive me?**

 **I hope you're up to reading a little paragraph from me. I knew when I started this fic that I wanted to take reviewers suggestions to heart. This chapter, if you're kind enough to leave a few words about what you've read, perhaps you could also take some time to talk to me about Harriet's sexuality in your opinion. While this is a Harriet/Snape fic to the end, it will be slow to get there, and I can't expect Harriet to never have any experience with her own classmates. Know that I'll never dive too deeply into any Harriet/non-Snape pairing, but I feel like Harriet would choose to place her affections with those who protect her and show her affection, regardless of their gender. I can't speak for my whole gender or country, where I grew up, it isn't uncommon for a girl to have sexual experiences with her own sex. At risk of sounding hopelessly ignorant, is it the same way in the UK?**

 **While we're waiting for Harriet to grow, mature, and come around to Snape (and for Snape to get a clue as well), what semi-romantic pairing might you tolerate for young Harriet?**


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